Multicolour Words
by GunslingerBlok
Summary: A narcolectic pyromaniac, a blonde princess ready to fight and a bouncy little brother with an unlimited supply of energy. Ohyeah, Zoro was lovin' university, alright. Chapter 8 up! [ZoLu, AceSan, Shonenai, AU]
1. Chapter 1

Multicolour Words

by GunslingerBlok

Chapter 01

_ So, this basicly is my first (One Piece) fic ever. I've had the pleasure of following the series for quite a while now, though mostly anime, since the manga is only at volume 9 here in the Netherlands. Ohyeah, the Netherlands, that's where I'm from. Wich means my english is pretty crappy, so please don't flame too much about that, I know my grammar is bad. I still decided to try to write a fanfic anyway, so I hope you guys will still enjoy it._

The title 'Multicolour Words' is actually the title of the song I was listening to while I thought of this story. Multicolour Words might have multiple meanings, but the meaning I wanna focus on with this fic, is that multicolour words are words with more meanings than one. Erhm.. this was a weird explenation of the title..

The story? Yeah, still completely have to figur that one out. All you have to know is; Zoro is his grumpy old self, going to the university, and Luffy is the fluffy little boy everybody loves! And there's gonna be lots of ZoLu involved, including some AceSan. Yes, I know SanUso is more loved than AceSan, but Usopp's nose is scaring me (yeah, you try snuggling with Usopp without your eyes getting poked out xo!) I'll probably add him in the story anyway, just not as Sanji's lover.

As you, most likely, already guessed, this fic is AU. Wich is gonna be hard for me, since writing in the usual universe of One Piece is already a tough cookie, let alone AU. Next to that, me being a Dutch 15-year-old, I absolutely have no idea what university is like. I might think up my own rules, lol. Well, that'll be enough rambling for now…

**Note:** As stated above, please don't flame for my bad english. Correct that, don't flame at all. You can critizise to let me know what I can improve, but flaming will be used to keep my house warm.

**Note 2:** I'll try my very best to keep characters In Character, but concidering this is my first fic, that might be a problem. Please tell me when they are REALLY OOC, thankyou 3

**Note 3:** You probably should know about Luffy, Zoro, Ace, Nami, Sanji, Usopp, Chopper and Robin, and perhaps some other minor characters from around and before the Arabasta Arc.

**Disclaimer:** If I owned One Piece, I would be partying with Oda-san somewhere in Japan, thankyouverymuch. One Piece is copyright Eiichiro Oda. 

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The rain was pouring from the sky, soaking everything that could be soaked on the campus. With a bored look on his face, the green-haired teen stared out of the window, barely being able to see anything because of the raindrops sliding down the window. Why was he here again?

He didn't even remember the reason for signing up for university at all, and yet, two months after finishing high school, here he was, waiting for someone to give him the instructions about his classes. Yawning widely, he turned away from the window and stared at a monitor, hanging a couple of meters away. There was a blue-haired girl visible, promoting the university.

"Welcome to East Blue University, the number one university of the country! We specialize in many different studies, from-"

A second loud yawn escaped the boy. He was about to fall asleep, damnit, why did they keep him waiting for so long? And as if he had said the magic words, a young woman entered the tiny waiting-room he was sitting in.

"Roronoa Zoro? Please follow me, so we can give you your instructions." A warm, but horribly fake, smile appeared on the woman's face as she turned around to leave the room again. Zoro grabbed his coat, wich was lying next to him, from the couch, and followed the woman. A third yawn escaped from his mouth.

"I'm sorry to have you keep waiting for so long, there were some problems on the campus. Appearently one of the students set his bed on fire. Not on purpose ofcourse, though we did have problems before with this boy," the woman spoke, looking over her shoulder to make sure the teen was still following her. "Actually, he might become your future roommate.."

As if stung by a bee, Zoro's face went from total-boredness to ultimate-grumpy. Ofcourse, he had to get the kid that set his own bed on fire every now and then. Great, just great. _Seriously, why am I here again?_

"But don't worry, the fire-corps is located nearby, so whenever you smell smoke, start screaming and we'll alarm them. They're used to fires on the campus by now, so they know how to react," the woman continued on rambling, as if she honestly thought Zoro was listening to her. He, on the other hand, didn't hear a word she said after telling him about his future roommate.

_Damnit, how long is this hallway gonna be? We've been walking for ages now…_ Zoro sighed, going with his hand trough his hair. And the woman wouldn't shut the hell up either, what the fuck was wrong with this place? He didn't like it, he didn't like it at all. He knew coming here was a bad idea. Stuck in his own thoughts, he suddenly bumped into the woman, who had stopped walking rather abruptly. He mumbled a soft 'sorry' after he took a step back and stared at the door they had stopped for.

"Inside here, your instructor will be waiting. He'll take you around the campus today, and also show you where your room is. Erhm..-" The woman suddenly started blushing, as if she was emberrased to tell what she was about to tell. "He's…. a bit aggressive against freshmen.. so.. be carefull.." She let out a soft giggle, before pushing open the door and stepping aside so Zoro could enter the freshly revealed room.

The room was as boring and empty as the waiting room, with only one window. The walls had a light grey colour, just as the floor. The ceiling was coverend with brightly shining lamps, and right in the middle, his back turned to the door, was a blonde man standing. He was tall, thin and was wearing a tux. A cloud of greyish smoke was hanging around his head, leading to the conclusion the guy was a smoker. Zoro grumbled something that sounded like 'grutterftr' and cleared his throad. As if the blonde had just noticed the two entering the room, he turned around and started at the green-haired teen with right eye. His other eye was hidden behind a shining golden lock of hair. An impressive curly eyebrow was lifted by seeing the freshman he was about to give a tour around campus. A cigarette was hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Sanji-san, this is Roronoa Zoro. Please give him a quick tour around the campus and.." the woman's voice became hardly hearable when she continued. "And.. please try not the hurt him too much.. The last freshman still hasn't left the hospital.."

Seeing the blonde's mouth turn into a grin, this was something Zoro couldn't ignore. "Yeah, like curly-eyebrows overhere could even give me the tiniest scratch.." he grumbled, just hard enough so that Sanji could hear it. Before the thought of what he just said might've been a mistake could go trough his head, a foot was flying trough the air, aiming for the freshman's head. Thanking god for his quick reflexes, Zoro ducked, the foot touching the tips of his green hairs and then crashing into the doorframe, leaving a pretty impressive hole.

"What the _FUCK_ are you doing?" Zoro yelled, as he jumped forward to grab the blonde's collar. "What is your problem, asshole!"

"You are, Moss Head." The blonde growled. "Insult the eyebrow and I'll kick your ass all the way to hell, _damnit_!"

"You got a problem with my hair, Princess?" Zoro hissed, lifting one first-formed hand in the air, ready to punch the blonde's shining teeth right out of his mouth. Sanji let out an aggressive sounding 'rahr', lifting his leg, also ready to start the fight. This was when the woman interrupted.

"Please, Sanji-san, don't fight him," she yelled, though her voice was almost smothered by the angry growls Sanji and Zoro where throwing at eachother. "My boss will kill me if you break down this place again! Please, for me?" As if a switch was turned, the blonde's angry expression dissapeared as he pushed Zoro's hands away and rushed over to the woman's side. He grabbed her hands, holding them tightly while flaring his nostrils and making kissing sounds. With a disgusted look on his face, Zoro stared at his guide, who turned into a ladiesman so fast, it took him about a second.

"But ofcourse, Yuuko-chan, anything for you!" Sanji bend down to kiss her hands. "Aaah it's so unfair we can't be together! Why is it not allowed for a secretary and a student to have a relationship, I still don't understand it. Yet, your beauty keeps improving and amazing me everytime I see you!" As he kept on rambling and rambling to the, by now tomato-coloured, woman, Zoro's anger kept on growing too. He didn't wait hours in that damn waiting room to see this asshole hit on the secretary. He snorted and turned around, almost running past the two people who had managed to make him sick in the past couple of seconds.

"I'll find my own way around!" He yelled over his shoulder, leaving the two behind as fast as he could. He left the hallway, passed the waiting room he was in before and opened the door leading outside, too late noticing it was still raining. Before he knew it, he was soaked, but refusing to go back inside again, he kept walking forward. By the time he had crossed the large square, wich was surrounded by buildings, about 4 floors high, he was cold, shivering and even more wet than he was before, if that was even possible. He took a quick look around, staring up at the buildings surrounding him.

Since this was the campus he was walking around on, those must've been the rooms wich the students of East Blue University call home for a whole year long. Just the idea of such a tiny room, having the share it with a complete stranger and to call it 'home' made Zoro shiver. Though that also could have something to do with the the rain, wich was still pouring from the skies, and the fact that he was wearing nothing more than a t-shirt. Since his coat, wich he kept in his hand the whole time, was soaked too, he couldn't wear it anymore. This day was just getting better and better. Perhaps, if he went inside the huge buildings, he could try to find his room, perhaps meet his roommate, just to get that over with…

Ofcourse, he didn't have his keys, nor did he know wich room was partly his, since that was part of the information the blonde had to give him during the tour around campus. Swearing and calling the rainclouds above him every bad name he could remember, he still went trough the large wooden doors that led to the inside of the student hostel. Right before the doors closed, an awefully familiar voice reached his ears.

"Hey, Marimo! Wait up, asshole!" The blonde, who appearently found the time to leave his beloved 'Yuuko-chan' alone for a while, had followed him trough the rain. He kicked the wooden doors of the student hostel open and entered the building hastily, trying to stay at least a little bit dry. "Damnit, bastard, don't fucking run away just like that, I still have to give you your keys and that damn tour too."

"I don't need your frikkin' tour, just give me the keys and leave me alone." Zoro grumbled. He felt like punching the guy in the face for the 'Marimo'-insult, but decided against it. This day was too fucked up already. He held up his hand, in wich Sanji dropped a single key. A number was carved into the handle.

"96A…" The green-haired teen looked around, searching for anything that could lead him to room 96A. However, the hallway was completely empty, except for a photo of a very grumpy looking old lady. Sanji, noticing Zoro had no idea where to go, mumbled something that sounded like 'follow me', and went right. The freshman, who didn't feel like getting lost in his own student hostel, followed against his will.

The entire way they walked was as boring and empty as the hallway they first entered. The only decoration there was, was freshly-washed laundry from the students, wich was hanging openly and exposed in the hall. Another thing Zoro didn't like. No fucking way he was hanging his laundry in the hall.

After walking for about five minutes, in wich they turned left and right about ten times, Zoro started to wonder what on earth was going on with this building. There was no way the building was wide enough to have space for them to have that many turns. He ignored it, however, when they reached a staircase. Sanji started climbing it, and Zoro followed a few meters behind him.

They passed the first floor and the second floor and climbed higher untill they reached the third floor. Here, Sanji turned right and stopped after a couple of meters.

"Here it is, room 96A." He knocked on the door, looking over his shoulder to Zoro, who was a few meters away from him, out of reach of the blonde's legs. You can never be too carefull. "Get over here, asshole, this is your room, not mine. Meet your roommate."

"Don't call me that, curly-eyebrows…" Zoro growled, walking towards the door, eyes focused on the blonde.

"Damnit, I already told you not to insult _the eyebrow_, Moss Head!" Sanji raised one leg, ready to kick, as Zoro grabbed the ladiesman's collar again. But before they could actually start fighting, the door of room 96A opened, and a head popped out, staring at the two.

The head belonged to a man, about the same age as Zoro was. He had black, untidy hair wich was mostly covered by a big orange cowboy hat. His face was covered with freckles and his eyes seemed to be stuck on the 'lazy/tired'-mode. He held up his hand as a greeting. "Yo."

"Ah, Ace-san." Sanji dropped his leg immediatly as he saw the black-haired teen's face appear. Zoro let go too, turning around to see what his new roommate looked like.

"Sanji-san, goodmorning!" The guy, who appearently was named Ace, opened the door completely, and smiled at the blonde. Other than the weird cowboy hat and just as orange shorts, he was wearing nothing. Zoro felt a shiver climbing up his spine as he took a quick look outside trough a nearby window. It was still raining like the sky had burst open, so why was this guy hardly dressed?

"He's my new roommate?" Ace asked, pointing a finger at Zoro. The freshman grumbled. He could've just asked him himself.

"Yeah, I'm afraid he is. Sorry." Sanji threw a dirty look at Zoro, who tried his best to ignore the blonde. Fighting on his first day at campus really wasn't on his to-do-list, though sometimes as he already noticed, it was just hard to ignore the sonuvvabitch.

"Please, come in. It's a bit of a mess right now, and there's only one bed, but I'll explain that later." Ace's smile widened as he said that, like the was proud of the fact that, wich Zoro noticed as he entered the room, half of the room was scorched. Next to that, there was a bed-shaped clean spot in the middle of all the black.

"I assume that's where your bed was suppose to be?" Zoro mumbled, as he pointed to the clean spot. He walked to the middle of the room and looked around. On the left, there was a small sink and a sink unit. On the right there were two large wooden doors, one of them being open and giving view to a walk-in-closet. The closet was stuffed with the same orange shorts as Ace was wearing, including two more of the ugly orange cowboy hats. There where also a bunch of black t-shirts, wich seemed like none of them had been touched in a long while. The green-haired teen automaticly assumed the other door led to a similair closet.

Now that he was in the room, Zoro started to understood why the black-haired teen wasn't wearing that much. It must've been over 30 degrees celcius. He walked to the heating and cought it stuck on the highest.

"Yeah, how'd yo-.. oh, so you've heard already..." The roommate's face turned a soft pink colour. He lowered his head a bit, so his hat would cover his eyes. "Please believe me if I say it wasn't on purpose. I know the other students think I like setting things on fire, but that's really not true. I just… happen to drop the match every now and then." He laughed nervously, turning around quickly to face Sanji again. "So, Sanji, how've you been?"

As the blonde and the black-haired teen started a conversation, Zoro looked around some more. There was indeed one bed, wich, he assumed, was _his_ bed. Next to it, there where three boxes piled, two large boxes and one very long and thin box. He walked to it, opening the long and thing box, revealing three beautifull and high quality katana. He was surprised when he had heard that weapons such as these weren't forbidden on the campus. He still thought that was fishy.

He took one of the katana's out of the box, one that was white, the opposite of the other two katana's. Zoro unsheatened it a bit, caressing the blade with his fingertips.

"That's a pretty cool sword.." A soft voice came from over the freshman's shoulder. He jumped up in surpise, almost hitting his new roommate with the handle of his katana. Wait… Since when could people sneak up on him like that? He hadn't heard Ace at all, though he usually could still sense when someone was trying to get close.

"Th.. Thanks.." Zoro sheatened the sword and bend down to pick up the other two. "So.. If your bed is burned down.. where are you going to sleep?" He certainly didn't feel like giving his own bed away, let alone share it his orange-obsessed roommate.

"Don't worry, a new bed is delivered by tonight," Ace answered. "That bed is all yours. By the way, I don't think I've properly introduced myself yet." He held out his hand. "The name's Portugues D. Ace!"

Laying down his katana's on his bed, Zoro took Ace's hand and shook it. "Roronoa Zoro. Guess we'll be stuck for a while together.."

"Guess we are, Zoro-san." Ace turned around, staring at the scorched wall wich used to be known as his-side-of-the-room. "Guess I'll start cleaning that now, before my new bed arrives.. Ohyeah, the other closet is yours." He nodded towards the two wooden doors on his left. "Since you won't have much time tomorrow, it might be smart to unpack today."

"Wh… wait, what do you mean 'I won't have much time tomorrow'?" Zoro quoted. Had he missed something? Did lessons already start tomorrow?

"You don't know about introduction-day? Tomorrow, you'll be stuck with the rest of the fresmen for the entire day, getting to know eachother." Ace looked over his shoulder and grinned widely. "And I can tell you, it's boring and annoying as hell!"

"Great, just great.." Zoro muttered something unappropiate before grabbing the other two boxes, putting them on his bed, and opening the top one. It was stuffed with normal black jeans and plain-coloured shirts, wich he took to his new closet to put them away. After doing that, he opened the second box, wich held some of his personal belongings.

Right next to his bed was a small cupboard with a few drawers in it. He took a cellphone, an Ipod-mini and a picture from the box and put the first two items in the upper drawer, while the picture was held in his hand for a while. There was a tall man, around his 40ths and a younger girl, who looked around the age of 12, with dark blue hair showing.

"Your girlfriend?" Ace's voice, way to close again, said. Zoro turned around faster than he had wanted to, almost tripping over his own feet.

"STOP doing that!" He yelled, as Ace took a step back. "Stop sneaking up on me, _damnit_!"

"You really think you should say 'damnit'? Wouldn't your girlfriend mind? She seems sweet."

"She's not my girlfriend, and no, she wouldn't mind. She couldn't mind.."

"Oh? What's that suppose to mean?"

"Doesn't matter, just go back to your cleaning." Zoro turned his back to Ace again, grabbing some more of his belongings from the bottom of the box and stuffing them in the cupboard. Ace, getting the hint, turned around too and walked to the huge black spot on the, what used to be light yellow wall. Right when Zoro wanted to put his katana's away, under his bed, he heard a suspicious sound. It sounded like a match being lid. He turned around to see what Ace was doing.

Indeed, it was a match being lid. By Ace. Who was standing right on the spot where his bed used to be, staring at the fire with such love in his eyes, it made Zoro feel incredibly uncomfortable.

"Ace-san, you really think you should.. I mean, you just burned down your own bed.." Zoro took a small step closer, ready to catch the match, if Ace was to drop it. "You really think you should be playing with fire again?"

"Perhaps I shouldn't, but I can't help it." Ace's mouth spread into a wide smile. "Fire is the most beautifull thing in the world, it really is."

Zoro seriously doubted that, but didn't go against it. It was clear there was something wrong with his new roommate, his thought being confirmed when the teen closed his eyes and made a soft snoring-sound. He was shaking for a couple of seconds, before falling down and crashing onto the floor. The match, miracliously, was still on fire.

"Oi… Ace-san.. Oi!" Zoro carefully walked closer. It could be a prank, and he really didn't feel like having to hear the story 'how he was fooled by Ace' over and over again. In his thoughts, the blonde was telling the story to all his friends with a huge grin on his face. Quickly pushing that thought away, Zoro closed in on his roommate. The closer he got, the harder a grumbling snoring-sound got. He was sleeping?

"Perhaps you should put that out. The match I mean. You don't want your bed to be burned down too, right?" A cheerfull voice said from by the door. Zoro looked up, looking who was talking to him, when he noticed a rather skinny, but about as tall as Zoro was, young boy with raven-black hairs. He was wearing old, faded jeans and a brightly red t-shirt. On his feet he was wearing battered sandals. But the weirdest thing of all was the old strawhat balancing on top of his head. His mouth was spread into a smile and right below his left eye was a scar.

It took Zoro a while before he was recovered from his confusion after seeing the skinny boy, but then remembered the match Ace was holding was indeed still burning. Quickly he ducked to grab the match and put it out between his thumb and indexfinger. With a sigh of relief, he stood up again, staring down at his roommate, who was still fast asleep.

Then he remembered the weird boy, and turned around to look at him. "Thanks.. I guess.." Zoro muttered, taking another look at the boy's weird outfit, before deciding this campus really was stuffed with crazy people.

"That's okay," The boy entered the room, kneeling down next to Ace, and taking of his hat, to lay it down next to him. "He probably should've told you as soon as you met. This happens quite often, you know."

"What, that he suddenly falls asleep?"

"Yeah," The boy's grin dissapeared for a while, before returning even brighter and larger than before. "Ace has narcolepsy."

"Narc-what?" Zoro sighed. Great, appearently his roommate was a pyromaniac with narc.. whatever.

"Narcolepsy!" The boy laughed. "Took me a while before I could pronounce it too, but basicly it means Ace just falls asleep every now and then. He's usually awake within a couple of minutes again, though."

"Right.. and.. who _are_ you?" Zoro asked. The boy seemed to know a lot about Ace, so they must've been friends or something. Perhaps even related. There were some resemblances between the two.

"I'm Luffy, nice to meet you!" The boy said eagerly, jumping up again. "And you?"

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_ZOMG, finished already! Yes, I know, it wasn't much of a chapter, but it's still just an introduction to the story. So.. now I want reviews XD please tell me what you think of the story, if the characters were IC and if this story has any potential at all. I really wanna know if I should continue this or not, lol. So please review!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Multicolour Words  
Chapter 02  
By GunslingerBlok**

_-SQUUEEEE- I got reviews! And more than I expected, lol! I'm glad you people like the story so far! I was a bit worried about Ace, but appearently, the readers like him as a narcolectic pyromaniac XD! In the upcoming chapter, not all that much will happen. New characters will be introduced and Zoro will be having a hard time dealing with them._

Those who are waiting for the shounen-ai… you'll have to wait a little bit (much) longer, lol. I don't think Zoro is someone who will confess, or even fall in love for that matter, after a few days. But I'll try to put at least SOME fluff in it. Perhaps.

Ohyeah, thanks so much for the reviews everybody! I would reply to them but.. I won't. Just remember: I love you for reviewing XD! Have fun reading!

**Disclaimer**: If I had owned One Piece, Zoro and Luffy would've had sex in the first episode. One Piece copyright Eiichiro Oda.

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"I'm Luffy, nice to meet you!" The boy said eagerly, jumping up again. "And you?"

"Roronoa Zoro." The freshman answered, blinking at the boy's jumping. He seemed to have a lot of energy.

"Great, I'll call you Zoro!" Luffy said, his smile blinding the green-haired teen.

"Oi. You really think we're that close already?" Zoro grumbled, more to himself than to the young boy infiltrating his room, who was now staring at the katana's that were still laying in Zoro's bed.

Zoro's eyes followed the boy's look, but was too late to make him stop from jumping forward and grabbing Wadou Ichimonji.

"This is so cool! Is it real? It must be, it's so heavy!" Luffy brabbled, as he unsheatened the swords and held it above him with both hands. He swung the swords trough the air, laughing out loud at the cool 'swoosh!' sound it made. "I didn't know swords were allowed on the campus, but you have three of them, so I guess it is. You know, I once had a sword, it was a wooden one, though, and not as cool as this one, but it also made that cool 'swoosh!' sound when I was swinging it around!"

"Oi, kid, OI!" Zoro ran over to Luffy, trying to take back the katana from the raven-haired boy. "Don't –Hey, watch it!- don't touch these katana's, they're dangerous!" Jumping back because Luffy made another swing, almost chopping Zoro's head off, the freshman tried his best to get close without getting cut. However, the boy was swinging the swords around so fast, there was no opportunity for the green-haired teen to get close. Appearently, Luffy _really_ liked the 'swoosh!' sound.

"MONKEY D. LUFFY?" A high, female voice sounded, as another new person appeared at the door. A girl, about 18 years old, with shoulder-length hair as orange as Ace's cowboy hat, leaned forward, searching support on her legs. She was panting, like she had ran for quite a while. She was wearing a white sweater with the word "Squee!" written over her chest in red letters. She was also wearing a black mini-skirt (Zoro felt another shiver climb up his spine) and high boots. "You little brat, here you are!"

Zoro, who was getting a headache from all the people entering his room without permission, stared at the girl with a shocked expression. Her expression, on the other had, was set on 'you, me, outside, right now!' as she entered the room, walking towards Luffy. "Don't think you can avoid me forever!"

Luffy yelped in surprise when the orange-haired girl grabbed his wrist, making him drop the katana. Zoro jumped forward in an impressive headlong dive to catch it, cutting his arm on the blade. Cursing, he stood op, sheatening the katana again and putting all three of them under his bed. As he sat down on the bed himself, taking a look at the fresh cut in his arm, he looked at the girl and Luffy yelling at eachother. It seemed to be about money, and with no hopes of getting either of them out of the room, Zoro just decided to watch it untill his headache got so worse, he would have to kill them. He hoped that would be soon.

"You still need to pay me back, brat! You owe me 50 bucks!" The girl yelled. She grabbed Luffy's other wrist too, making it impossible for him to free.

"No fair, the book was only 20 bucks!" Luffy said, trying to get his wrists free. The girl's grip was too strong, though.

"Yeah, but that was three weeks ago," The girl grinned. "For every week you're late paying me, I add another 10 bucks."

"NO FAIR!" Trying to push the girl away, Luffy started wiggling and dancing around in order to get free. Zoro thought this all was fairly funny-looking, but didn't laugh. He didn't do anything but watch. The risk of getting noticed by the girl was too high if he did anything but watch.

"Look, just pay and I'll let you go. If you don't pay, I'll start adding another 20 bucks per week." Said the girl. She sighed deeply when Luffy put up his puppy-eyes-look, and tried to put up an even angrier face at him.

"Aaawww, but Nami… Zoro, please help me, she won't let go…" Luffy whined, looking at his freshly-made friend with the same puppydog-eyes.

This was wat Zoro feared. Now the attention was pointing at him, and as the girl turned around with the same angry slash evil look on her face, he quickly grabbed one of his katana from under his bed. He and the girl stared at eachother for a couple of seconds, Luffy still whining and squirming in the background.

"And _you_ are?" The orange-haired girl said, like it was Zoro infiltrating _her_ room.

"The one who owns half this room," Zoro grumbled. "And if you and kid don't leave this room within five minutes, I'll kick you both out." He was taking a risk, a huge risk, since the girl looked like she could spit fire every moment now. He dared taking that risk, though, and stood up.

"Ooooh, so _you're_ Ace-san's new roommate!" The angry expression dissapeared right away, and she let go of Luffy's wrist, turning around completely to face Zoro. "Nice to meet you, I'm Nami, a friend of Ace-san's."

"Roronoa Zoro." Zoro answered. He was meeting too many damn people today, and they all seemed to be as weird and fucked up as the university itself. "Look, I don't know what business you have with the kid, but I would appreciate it if you would just leave the damn room."

"Right after Luffy pays." Was the answer the freshman got.

"But Nami!" Luffy whined again. "You know I don't have that much money!"

"Then borrow some from Ace. Where is he anyway?" Nami said, as she took a quick look at the ground, like it was only logic he would be there. "Never mind…"

"I can't borrow money from him anymore, I'm always borrowing money from him! I promise I'll pay it back, Nami, just now right now!" Luffy said, slowly backing away from Nami.

"No, Luffy," Nami hissed. "Since you will never mention it again, and you will hope I'll forget but you _know_ I'll never forget, and weeks and weeks will go by, so eventually the debt will be so high you'll never be able to pay it back!"

"But Namiii!" Luffy repeated, putting up his puppydog-eyes again.

And all this time, Zoro was just standing there. His headache was getting worse, his hand trembling holding the katana. Still wet from the rain, he wanted to change into some dry clothes, but couldn't because of the two people still fighting in his room. They started to raise their voice. Now they where yelling. Screaming. And Zoro's headache was getting unbearable.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!" He screamed, unsheatening his sword and pointing it towards Luffy and Nami. "God damnit, you two are giving me a huge headache, and I don't fucking like headaches!"

"Oi, Zoro-san, mind keeping your voice down? I'm getting a headache." Ace's voice said.

"Ace-san! You're.. awake?" Zoro quickly sheatened his katana again, feeling a little bit guilty for the shocked look Luffy had on his face. He watched the pyromaniac stand up from the floor.

"Sorry about that, I probably should've told you." Ace grinned. "I'm narcolectic."

"Yeah, Luffy-kun told me.." Zoro answered. "It's… weird." Yes, weird. That was the only word fitting.

"Yeah it is," laughed Ace. "And rather annoying too, but you'll get used to it. And you already met my little brother?"

"Little brother?" So he was right, they were related.

"Yeah, Ace's my big brother!" The shocked expression caused by Zoro's katana dissapeared immediately and was quickly replaced by a huge, illuminating grin. "He's only four years older, though."

"And she?" Zoro pointed at Nami. "She's not related to you guys too, right?"

"Nah, she's a… family friend." The hesitation as what to call Nami made the pyromaniac laugh nervous. Zoro looked at him with a confused look, but decided to ignore it. "By the way, you're soaked."

"I know." Zoro mumbled trough his clenched teeth, his face going to angry-mode again.

"Want me to make a fire so you can dry up a little?"

"NO!" Not only Zoro, but also Nami and Luffy screamed as soon as the word 'fire' was noticed.

Nami sighed, understanding Zoro probably needed his privacy to change into some dry clothes. "Fine, I'll leave. You're lucky, Luffy, you won't be able to escape next time." As she left, Luffy stuck out his tongue to her, acting as childish as he looked.

"Don't do that, Luffy," Ace said. "Be nice to Nami-chan."

"But she's making me pay much more then I borrowed!" Luffy said.

"You know how Nami is, Luffy, you shouldn't borrow money from her!" Ace sighed. "But c'mon, we were going to the store today, right?"

"Yay, store!" Luffy ran over to the door immediately. "We'll get meat right? Lots of meat!"

"We don't _need_ meat, Luffy," Ace followed his little brother, smiling. "Nojiko feeds you enough meat. See you later, Zoro-kun! Oh, and if my bed comes, make the deliverers put it at the clean spot. I'll clean the rest later. Bye."

"Yeah, see ya." And as the door closed, Zoro was finally alone in his new 'home'. "Today certainly was.. the most interresting day of my live."

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As soon as Zoro was alone, and changed into some dry clothes, he dropped himself on the bed for a quick nap. Four hours later, he was still asleep, never noticing the deliverers bringing in the bed, with instructions of Nami, who happened to walk by. He didn't awoke untill someone was poking him in his arm, non-stop for at least a couple of minutes. Grunting loudly, Zoro grabbed the hand that was poking him, almost squeezing it, untill a familiar voice yelped in pain. The green-haired teen opened his eyes to meet the dark chocolate-coloured ones of Luffy.

"Why on earth are you waking me up?" Zoro mumbled. He sat up, yawning loudly, before throwing another annoyed look at the boy.

"Ace told me to," The kid answered. "He thought you might be hungry, so he went downstairs to the cafeteria, but didn't know what you would like to eat so he sent me to get you."

"How kind of him." Zoro yanwed again. He could use some more sleep. "But I'm not hungry." Right at that moment, his stomach decided to make a sound like a mountain collapsing. Blushing a little bit, he ignored Luffy's wide grin and walked towards the door.

"Fine, so maybe I'm a little hungry." Zoro said. "Let's go to that cafeteria." He left the room, going left.

"Sure, but we'll have to go right for that." Luffy laughed, grabbing Zoro's arm to pull the other teen with him. "You're new right? So you don't know your way around here. C'mon, I'll show you where the _food_ is!"

"Oi, kid, let go of my ar-GAH!" Luffy suddenly started to run, still holding Zoro's arm and dragging him with him.

Being dragged trough almost the entire building, Zoro forgot his way immediately. He knew finding his way back to his room would become a difficult task to complete. Not that he would ever admit that though. Everybody knew Zoro could always find his way. Always.

The cafeteria was crowded, even though not even half of all the students from East Blue University had arrived at the University yet. Luffy quickly dragged Zoro to Ace, who was, unfortunately for Zoro, sitting in the back of the large room. Zoro, hardly being able to keep up with the exciting boy, had trouble staying on his feet, as being dragged made him jump over obstacles like students or chairs.

Ace already had three plates of spaghetti standing in front of him, one for him, one of Luffy and one for Zoro. The freshman and the boy sat down next to eachother, at the opposite of Ace, as Zoro glanced around the room. Was it just him or was everybody looking at them?

"Zoro-san, I hope you like spaghetti, since it was the only thing left." Ace said, and he pushed a plate towards his new roommate. "We got here a little late, I'm afraid. Most of the food was gone. This was all Sanji-san could do for us."

"What? Wait, you mean that princess is working in the kitchen or something?" Zoro stared at his spaghetti. He didn't trust it anymore, he didn't trust anything involving the blonde.

"Yeah, he wants to be a professional cook, so in his free time, he works in the kitchen here." Ace told. "Though I'm not sure he likes it. The cooking he likes, but his cheff seems to be a bit grumpy at times."

"Ha, grumpy! That old man never is anything else!" Luffy laughed, his mouth filled with spaghetti.

"Luffy, swallow, please!" Ace immediately hissed, as people stared at the boy with both amused as disgusted looks. "You really should learn to swallow before you talk, how many times have I told you that already?"

Luffy pouted, but took a glance at Zoro's plate and noticed the food was still untouched. "You're not going to eat?"

Zoro looked at his plate, still not trusting the spaghetti. Then again, in general, spaghetti wasn't known for killing people in whatever way. But before he could took a bite of spaghetti, Luffy's hand swapped by, lifting the spaghetti on his fork and stuffing the whole meal in his own mouth. Looking at the kid like this, his cheeks bulging from the food, it made Zoro wanna kill himself in the middel of the cafeteria.

"Luffy! Don't eat Zoro-san's food! What have I told you?" Ace angerly said to the boy, who swallowed away the food, sauce dripping from the corners of his mouth.

"I won't steal other people's food, since they are hungry too and I get enough already, yeah yeah!" Luffy pouted. "But that's not true, I'm still hungry!"

"Then go to Sanji-san, perhaps he has some leftovers for you." Ace said. "And ask him for some extra food for Zoro-san too."

"That's okay, I really don't trust the food that princess makes.." Zoro mumbled, handing over his empty plate to Luffy, who also grabbed his own to bring back to the kitchen. With a loud 'yay!', he left, being stared at by the other students. Mostly freshman though, since people who've been on the university longer already seemed to know Luffy.

"Sorry about that," Ace laughed. "He's just so energic and he eats enough food a day to feed a complete army for a week."

"Really, I don't mind. I think I'm gonna start eating out of campus from now on." Zoro sighed. "He keeps you quite busy, doesn't he?"

"He does, but it's worth it." Ace said, his voice softening. "He's really good company, you know, once you get used to his way of doing."

Zoro seriously doubted this, but didn't ask further. It stayed quiet for a while, before Ace talked again. Zoro looked at him from the corner of his eyes, seeing the expression of his new roommate turn a bit sad.

"Besides, he doesn't have anyone else."

"Hm?"

"We're orphans." Ace looked Zoro in the eyes. "Guess being roommates and all, we probably should know eachother a bit better, right? I wouldn't mind telling about myself, if you would like to hear it."

Zoro grunted. He was curious, ofcourse. He didn't know anything about Ace, except his exceptional love for fire, wich wasn't really a positive thing. Perhaps the black-haired man had some kind of hidden past as a serial killer, ready to kill Zoro too when he was asleep. He wouldn't admit his curiousity, though. Never, 'cause Roronoa Zoro didn't care about other people.

"Whatever." Zoro mumbled, looking away from Ace's staring eyes, looking around the cafeteria again.

Ace smiled, knowing from Zoro's way of looking away, that he did indeed wanted to know more. He took another bite of spaghetti and cleared his throat.

"A couple of years ago, Luffy was too young to remember it, our parents died. Drowned in fact. Since we were to young to take care of ourselfs, we were put in foster homes, with a couple of great families who took care of us." Ace told. "However, none of the families could adjust to Luffy's energy and way of acting, so we went from family to family, staying here for a while, then there for a couple of months. It was hard, since Luffy couldn't make friends at the schools we went to. He just didn't have the time."

He took another bite, looking at Zoro from the corner of his eyes. He noticed the man was indeed listening to him, but tried his best not to let anyone notice that. Ace let out a soft chuckle, before continueing his story.

"Anyway, eventually, we ended up with a great woman, Makino was her name. She owned a bar and was married to an adventurer. She worked hard and long, but still managed to take care of Luffy. And every now and then, her husband came home, Shanks was his name, and told amazing stories about the things he experienced in the far-away countries he had been to. Shanks-san was about the only person in the world who could make Luffy concentrate on one thing for more than 10 minutes.

We only saw Shanks a couple of times, he hardly came home. He's probably traveling around the world right now too. However, after three happy years, Makino got really sicks, and died. At that time, I was just about to start at this university, so I couldn't really take care of Luffy. Luckily, in the time we stayed with Makino, we met Nami, and her older sister Nojiko. We became good friends, and since a year, Luffy is living with Nojiko. Since Nojiko didn't study further after her high school, but does have a job, she can take care of my little brother just fine."

"So Luffy-kun is living with that orange-haired girl and her sister?" Zoro, not being able to keep up his 'I don't care'- act anymore, imagined two Nami's with Luffy in the middle, hugging him untill he couldn't breath anymore. Well, it did make sense why Luffy was so bouncy and giddy all the time.

"Oh, so you _are_ interrested?" Ace said with a teasing voice, grinning.

"I-What? No, I'm just… Well… I just couldn't ignore your damn voice…" Zoro muttered, looking away again. He felt Ace's eyes in his back and knew the guy was smiling with fun right now.

At that moment, Luffy returned, with not one, not two, but six plates of spaghetti balancing on top of eachother with him. He sat down next to Zoro again, looking at the spaghetti with eyes that said nothing but love.

"You sure you can eat all that?" Zoro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Ofcourse!" Luffy chirped. "I wanted to get more, but Sanji said this was all I could get since he had to leave some leftovers for some of his female-friends. At least that's what he said, and when I tried to take some more spaghetti, he threw a knife at me, but I ducked and grabbed the spaghetti and ran!" He laughed, proud of what he had accomplished. Zoro raised the other eyebrow too, now staring in complete shock, at how the kid practically inhaled his food. Within seconds, all the plates where empty.

Caught in amazement and his own thoughts, Zoro didn't notice he was staring at the boy for a few minutes already. How on earth could such a small body hold so many food? And where did he leave it? He didn't stop staring untill Luffy started poking him in the arm again, and being annoyed by it, the green-haired teen grabbed the kid's wrist.

"Don't poke." Zoro grumbled.

"Then you don't stare so much." The boy backfired with a grin.

"I wasn't staring, I was thinking." Letting go of the boy's wrist, Zoro stood up. "I'm going back to the room." And with that, he left the two brothers alone. And again, he felt like everybody in the room was staring at him. What the fuck was up with this university?

"What were you two talking about when I left?" Luffy asked, after Zoro was out of sight. "Well, what were _you_ talking about, since he didn't open his mouth all that much, did he?"

"You, me, Makino-san, Shanks-san." Ace sighed. "Our history, basically."

"Why? You hardly know him." Luffy said, as he tried to balance al six empty plates on the top of his strawhat, wich was still firmly located on his head.

"Yeah well," Ace shrugged. "Just felt like it."

"Okay… Hey Ace, think we can go to that restaurant nearby? They have great meat there!"

"You're hopeless… Let me get my jacket."

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Zoro already decided, even after knowing the kid for barely a few hours, Luffy wasn't good for his health. As someone not being used to being around hyperactive people, the kid caused headaches pretty quickly. And his brother was just as weird. Why did he tell him the complete history of him and his brother? He hadn't asked for it, nor did he show any interrest. Well, in the beginning at least.

He now did understand why Luffy was hanging around the campus and his brother. If Nami's sister was anything like Nami herself was, then there were plenty of reasons not to be home that much. On the campus, Nami could be avoided. In a small house or appartment, that would become quite a task.

Thinking about the weird day Zoro had had, he wandered around the student hostel a bit, being sure he was going the right way leading back to room 96A. However, after walking for a while, he noticed his surroundings had changed. Instead of the boring grey walls the halls, where is room was located too, he was now surrounded by brightly yellow wallpaper, decorated with cute pink flowers. It was _the_ most ugliest wallpaper Zoro had ever seen.

But putting the wallpaper aside, the freshman was sure he never walked here before, and began to wonder if he had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Just as he was turning around to go his way back, a familiar voice called his name.

"Zoro-kun! Hey! You, with the weird hair!" It was Nami, running towards him.

"Don't call my hair weird, damnit." Zoro mumbled to himself, as he faced Nami. "What?"

"My my, aren't you a little grumpy this beautifull afternoon," She said with a wink. "You seen Luffy? I really need that money he owns me."

"Seriously, why are you bothering? The kid said he didn't have the money, right?" Wait, why was Roronoa Zoro standing up for that bouncy little brother?

"Like I care, I just want that money. Perhaps I can get some more from Ace…" Nami muttered the last part to herself, probably thinking about how to get Ace pay Luffy's debts. "Well, bye." And she ran off. Before she took a turn left, though, she turned around, waving at Zoro and yelling. "By the way, you owe me five bucks for me leaving your room when you wanted to change!"

"I-Wh-Wait, what the _HELL_?" But before he could protest, she had already ran off. "_Damnit_, that girl!" Still cursing, Zoro started walking again. He figured that, if he just kept on walking and walking, he'll eventually reach his room, right?

And yes, after walking for another hour and a half ("Damnit, when did the student hostel get so fucking big?") he finally found his way back to his room. He went inside and noticed Ace was 'home' too.

"Hey, where've you been? I thought you were going back to your room after dinner?" He asked, looking up from the burning match he was helding in his hand.

"I-ehh.. decided to walk around a little," Zoro answered. "Getting to know the neighbourhood." Yeah, that was a good answer. "You sure it's smart to play with fire, _again_, so close to your new bed?"

"No, but it's just so pretty…" Ace sighed. "Just look at the colours, the beautifull yellow and orange. It's so wonderfull!"

And Zoro, who really didn't care anymore, just layed down on his bed and fell asleep. It wouldn't matter if Ace would burn down the entire student hostel. The day couldn't get any weirder.

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_In Japan, it's polite to adress someone with –kun, -san, -chan or something similair. Leaving the honorific away means you're adressing to someone in a very intimate way. When just meeting someone, it's rather impolite to just calling someone by his/her name, wich is exactly was Luffy does. And yes I stole half of this from the XXXHoLiC manga's XD and no, I'm not saying this fic takes place in Japan, lol!_

WAH! Finito already? Darn, and when I started this chapter, I actually planned on stuffing the whole introduction-day in it too, lol! But then the cafeteria-thing came up, and there was no space left –sigh- There are, most likely, a lot of grammar-mistakes in this chapter. That's because I was stupid enough to write in in the middle of the night. At the moment, it's past 4:00 AM, and I'm tired like –whoa!-, but I still wanted to finish this.

**NOTE:** Now, before I start writing chapter 3, I wanna ask the lovely readers at something. I'm looking for a beta-reader, someone who knows good english to help me better the mistakes I make. I don't know much english people, let alone people who follow One Piece enough to be a fan, so I'm gonna have to search the help of a stranger The only thing you have to do is read my story (before all the other people can –gasp!-), better the mistakes and send it back to be so I can post it! I won't bother you much though, since I don't have too much free time, and writing in english takes a bit longer for me since I have to search in my dictionary all the time, lol.

If you're willing to apply for beta-reader, I also wanna ask you to help me correct the mistakes in the first two chapters ;; It's a bit messy otherwise, isn't it? So if you're interrested, please send me an e-mail to xpreciouspainx at gmail dot com, with your name and your account and I'll get back to you asap! PS. I probably won't update again before I have a beta-reader, but in the meantime, I'll also try to find someone myself, so don't worry, lol!

Next chapter: INTRODUCTION-DAY! Zoro's worst fear, or will he actually enjoy it? GAH, it's so exciting, I can hardly breath! And myesh, I love overreacting –squee!- Please review, Blok luvs reviews. They make me happy and a happy Blok an updating Blok!


	3. Chapter 3

**Multicolour Words  
Chapter 03  
By GunslingerBlok**

_Third chapter already, this stuff is going fast, lol. In this chapter, even more people will be introduced, since it's introduction day! I'm not sure if it's normal to have an introduction day at a university, but I've decided to make up my own weird rules for this university._

_When writing this, I had no idea what I was doing. Well, at the beginning at least. I just wanted to get Zoro out of bed at 3 AM. Besides that, I was a bit too excited too, since I finally got my One Piece graphic novels (took the company I ordered them at almost four weeks to get them to me...). And then there was school. Since it's basically going…well…. terrible at school, I'll have to pour almost all my free time in homework and the likes. So I'll only be able to write in the weekends._

_Well… I really don't have more to say –gaps-! So here's the third chapter…_

_**Disclaimer:** Noo, I STILL don't own it –sigh- But someday, eh.. someday… One Piece is copyright Eiichiro Oda._

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Just a couple of hours after falling asleep, Zoro awoke again, his stomach grumbling. Right, he forgot, he hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday's breakfast. Knowing he probably wouldn't be able to get any sleep if he stayed this way, he took his coat and snuck towards the door. It was probably around 3 AM in the morning, and Ace was fast asleep in his own bed. In one of his hands he was still holding a box of matches. Thinking it might be safe to take as many possible objects that can cause fire away from Ace, Zoro took the box and put it in the pocket of his jacket. He then grabbed his keys and left the room.

As expected, it was completely quiet in the student hostel, as well as it was dark. Hardly knowing where he went, Zoro took a turn left and kept on walking untill he reached a staircase. Good, the staircase, he remembered the staircase. He went down, all the way to the ground floor, and took another left turn. From there, he was lost.

From what he remembered, he and Sanji had taken… a lot of turns. Right, that wasn't going to help him. The green-haired teen sighed and started walking again. Eventually he'd get to the large main doors…he hoped.

And indeed after walking, what felt like at least an entire day, but actually was about an hour, he reached the doors and opened one of them. This surprised him, since he didn't think the doors would actually be unlocked, but ignored it and went outside.

It was a beautifull night, with a clear sky. The stars were shining with a crescent moon between them and a soft wind was blowing, playing with the white t-shirt Zoro was wearing. He shivered, putting on his coat and left the student hostil, when he suddenly noticed he wasn't wearing any shoes. How the _fuck_ could he forget those?

Sighing but deciding not to go back, since it wasn't all that too cold, he crossed the square and left the university grounds trough the large iron gates wich were, appareantly, also open. Before he could actually go through them, though, he bumped into something- no, someone. He looked up and took a look at the person who he had bumped into.

The person, it looked like a 'he', though it was hard to see with the black hat shading most of his face, was taller than Zoro was, and looked more muscular. He was wearing a long black trenchcoat of wich the collar was pulled up high, so the bottom part of his face was mostly covered too. The man nodded and kept on walking, towards the entrance of the student hostel. The freshman looked over his shoulder till the man had entered the student hostel, and then looked forward again, continueing his walk.

When he reached the highway lying near the university, he turned left and found a 24-hours-open shop. It seemed empty; which wasn't weird at this hour, except for a tired-looking guy sitting behind the counter. He entered the shop and nodded towards the guy behind the counter as a greeting. The guy, who had slightly tanned skin, hay-coloured hair till just past his ears, a vertical scar just next to his left eye and was wearing glasses with pink-coloured glass, hardly looked up to greet his new customer.

Walking trough the store, Zoro grabbed some sandwiches and other edible things and went to the counter.

"You sure you can pay for all of that?" The guy behind the counter said, without looking up from the magazine he was reading.

"'Course, why else would I come into a store?" Zoro answered, slightly irritated.

"I figured you might as well be a tramp since you're not wearing any shoes…"

Zoro's face turned pink a bit, but he shook it off right away and mumbled something unintelligible, of wich he thought was explanation enough. He dropped the food on the counter and took his wallet from the pocket of his coat. "How much?"

The guy behind the counter sighed while putting away his magazine and started counting the prizes of the articles.

"Sooo, what's with the no-shoes thing?" He asked.

"Just forgot 'em." Zoro grumbled, barely loud enough to be heard.

"How the _hell_ do you forget your shoes?" The guy looked up questioningly.

"How the fuck should _I_ know, I just forgot 'em!" Zoro hissed. "Just tell me how much I owe you and I'll be on my way again."

"Alright, alright, calm down. That'll be $9.95." The guy said, shoving the food in a plastic bag. "You're from the university, huh?"

"How'd you guess?" The freshman mumbled as he paid.

"Since no one's idiotic enough to walk further than that without shoes on." The guy explained, taking the money and giving Zoro back some change.

"Enough with the shoes already, damnit!" Zoro grabbed the bag, turned around and left the store and the guy's laughing behind him.

As he re-entered the university grounds, crossing the square again, with his thoughts somewhere completely different, he bumped into someone again. "Watch the fuck out!" He hissed, as he looked up to see it was the same man from before. And just like a couple of minutes ago, the man just nodded and continued walking. Zoro shrugged and went inside the student hostel again, taking a sandwich from the plastic bag and started eating. His stomach grumbled contentedly.

Reaching room 96A again, wich took him longer than it should've taken him; Zoro noticed the lights were on. Did he wake op Ace? He thought he had been quiet when leaving. He entered the room again, and saw the lights came from a lighter Ace was holding.

"Hey, where've you been?" The black-haired man said. He was sitting on his bed, with his back against the wall. His head was bowed forward a bit, his hair covering his eyes.

"Store, I was hungry." Zoro answered. He closed the door, walked to his own bed and dropped the plastic bag on it. He took off his coat and threw it on the ground. He heard a soft sigh and turned around.

"You okay?" The freshman asked. "And do you think it's wise to keep that lighter so close to your hair?" He sat down on his own bed, trying to catch his roommate's eyes, but couldn't since his hair was still covering them.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ace turned the lighter off, and turned the normal light on. "Guess I had a nightmare, or something."

Zoro could clearly hear this was a lie, but didn't ask further. If the guy didn't wanna tell what was wrong with him, he certainly wouldn't force him to. He wasn't even interested. The green-haired teen took another sandwich and looked up again. His roommate was staring into space with an almost devestated look on his face. "Oi."

"Hm?"

"Want one?" Zoro held up a sandwich. He had no idea how to make the guy feel better, especially since he didn't know why he acted so depressed, but food had always helped him to feel a bit better when he was sad.

"Sure, thanks." Ace caught the sandwich Zoro threw at him, sat down back on his bed and started eating. "By the way, why did you take off without your shoes on? I noticed they were still here when you were gone."

"Ugh, enough with the damn shoes already, I just frikkin' forgot 'em!" Zoro sighed. "The guy at the store wouldn't shut up about it either."

"You mean Kohza? Tanned skin, dark blond hair, pink glasses?" Ace asked. Zoro nodded. "He's not so bad, just a bit bitter since he was kicked out of university."

Zoro grinned. Good, so the guy had some flaws too. Zoro forgets his shoes every now and then, the guy behind the counter got kicked out of university. He had to remember that for their next meeting.

After both students had eaten enough they decided to go back to sleep again. It was already 4:30 and Zoro had to get up at 6:30 for the introduction day, something he wasn't looking forward to at all.

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The next morning, Zoro woke up around 6:15 AM. Deciding he had enough sleep for now, he got up, took a towel and some clean clothes and silently left the room in order to find a shower. Since he was one of the few freshmen on this floor of the building, he didn't have to wait and could enter the bathroom right away.

After taking a quick shower and getting dressed (a simple black shirt with long sleeves and three blue stripes crossing horizontally as well as dark blue jeans), he went back to the room finding Ace awake.

"'morning," Zoro said. "Why're you awake already, don't you have the day off?"

"Yeah," Ace answered, also getting out of bed. "Guess I had enough sleep already." Right after saying that, he yawned loudly. Covering his mouth with his hand, he turned away, as if he was trying to hide the yawn.

But after seeing the large bags under his roommate's eyes, Zoro knew the guy had hardly slept at all. He shook his head and sat down on his bad, to put on his shoes. He surely wasn't forgetting them this time. After doing that, the green-haired teen opened the curtains and was greeted by a brightly shining sun, as if the rain from yesterday had never happened. He took his cellphone and Ipod-mini and was about to leave when Ace stopped him.

"Hold on a second, I'll go with you." He said. "I assume you're going to get breakfast?"

"Eh, yeah. I'll wait." The freshman sat down on the bed again while Ace was searching in his closet for some clothes.

"Why the way, have you seen a box of matches? I've seem to lost 'em."

Zoro's eyes flicked towards the pocket of his coat, wich was lying next to the bed. "Eh, no, haven't seen 'em. Why?"

"Just wondering." Ace came out of the walk-in-closet again, dressed in a plain black t-shirt and one of the orange shorts. He put on his black sneakers, took his orange cowboy hat and opened the door. "I must've left them somewhere. Well, let's go."

"Really, perhaps it's safer if you stayed away from matches, or anything other that can cause a fire." Zoro followed the black-haired man when leaving the room and closed the door behind him.

"Oh? Why?"

"…"

"What?"

"Nothing, never mind. Let's just get breakfast."

"Sure, but we'll have to go the other way for that."

Zoro's face turned a soft pinkish colour. He turned around quickly and started walking in the opposite direction, ignoring Ace chuckling.

The cafeteria was almost empty, except for a few other freshmen. Ace and Zoro sat down at the same table as yesterday and waited for the kitchen to open, wich would be at 7 o'clock. Both of them were silent. Ace simply had nothing to say and Zoro didn't want to make Ace think he was interested in, well…anything. But this silence didn't last on for long as the orange-haired girl, Nami, entered the cafeteria and went right over to their table.

"Ah, Nami-chan, good morning!" Ace greeted the young girl, who was now standing next to the table.

"Morning Ace-kun." She said, straightening her black skirt with green polkadots. She was wearing a light green t-shirt with a bright orange ball on it (wich, as Zoro looked again, apparently was a tangerine) and the same high boots as the day before. She sat down next to Ace, across Zoro. "What brings you up so early, I thought sophomore's have the day off."

"They do, but I just…woke up, so I decided to accompany Zoro-san." Ace said. "Where's Vivi-chan, isn't she coming?"

"Nah, she's having breakfast with rebel-boy." Nami explained. "I know she keeps denying it, but she's _soooo_ in love." A soft giggle escaped her mouth and Zoro grumbled.

"But she'll be at the introduction day in time, so it's okay." Nami said. "Kitchen's open." She stood up, leaving the two men behind.

"I'll get us some breakfast. What would you like?" Ace said, as he also stood up.

"Doesn't really matter, anything edible." Zoro mumbled. It was still way to early. "And some coffee. They do have coffee, right?"

"Yeah, they have coffee. Having a hard time waking up, eh?" Ace laughed, leaving to get them some breakfast. By the time he had reached the kitchen, Nami had already returned. She sat down across Zoro again and started eating.

"So what's up with Ace-kun?"

"Hm?"

"Well, you've seen him, right? He looks really tired, though he usually sleeps alright. If you ignore the times he's set his bed on fire. So, what'dya do to him?"

"Huh? What are you talking about, I didn't do anything to him."

"So no kinky gay-sex all night long, making him all tired…"

"I-WHAT?" Zoro jumped up, staring down at the girl, his head turning a flashy red colour. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Like that would ever happen! I-No, he- it's just stupid, why would- _WHAT THE FUCK_?"

"Haha, calm down, idiot, I was joking!" Nami burst into laughter, seeing Zoro's panic. "God, your reaction was beautiful; I wish I had my camera with me."

"Fuck off." The green-haired teen grumbled, as he sat down again. Of course, Ace chose that moment to return with two plates of sandwiches and two mugs of hot coffee.

"What going on?" He asked, setting down the plates. "Nami-chan, what did you say to him?"

"Nothing, nothing's going on." Nami took another bite of her toast, glancing at Zoro with amusement in her eyes. This guy was great for pranks and jokes. Zoro, who noticed the glance, quickly started drinking his coffee, almost burning his throat.

"Well, anyway, you should finish your breakfast soon; the freshmen are expected at 7:30 AM." Ace said. Meanwhile the cafeteria was starting to get busier. Around 7:10 the cafeteria was stuffed with freshmen, making a huge line in front of the kitchen. Nami chuckled. "They're all gonna be late…"

"That's because the kitchen's missing someone." Ace said. "Sanji's not working today, and he usually does most of the work. Well, for the lady's at least." Zoro said nothing. He looked down at his empty mug and sighed. Some more coffee would be more than welcome, but he really didn't feel like standing in line just for that.

"Well, let's go before we're late." Nami stood up. "Ace-san, could you please take care of the plates?"

"Of course, Nami-chan." Ace smiled, as he took Nami's and Zoro's plate and also stood up. "You two really shouldn't be late to introduction day; I heard Bon Clay-Sama is leading it."

"Oh God, you're not serious, right?" Nami sighed. "Please tell me that's a lie."

"Well, it's what I've heard, so I'm not sure. Anyway, have fun." A wide grin appeared on Ace's face, as he walked away with the plates. Zoro sighed deeply and also stood up.

"So, where are we supposed to go?" He asked.

"Square." Nami simply said. She grabbed Zoro by his arm and pulled him trough the huge croud of freshmen, who were now starting to fight over food. They all wanted some as fast as possible, so they wouldn't be late. As soon as Nami and Zoro had left the room, the green-haired teen pulled his arm away from Nami's grip. Together they walked through the hallways, where they encountered even more freshmen who were all late.

"I see we're lucky that we were so early." Nami said. Zoro stayed silent. "So, Mr. Mysterious, tell me, what classes are you following?"

"Don't know." Was the answer, something Nami hadn't expected. With a puzzled look on her face, she looked at Zoro.

"What do you mean 'don't know'?" She asked, as if he had made a joke.

"Like I said, I don't know. I'll find out once I have my books."

"You don't have your books yet? But classes start within three days!"

"I know, I'll get them tomorrow or something."

"You're really weird, you know that? And I'm not just talking about your hair."

"Don't start about the hair." Zoro sighed. "Look, I don't even know what I'm doing here. The only reason I _am_ here is because I was sent here by my stepdad." He noticed Nami was looking at him, suddenly much more interested, but he kept his silence. He didn't feel like telling about his family, or past for that matter. Especially not to someone he hardly knew and already didn't like.

"Fine." Nami focused her look in front of her again. They reached the large doors of the student hostel and went outside. There was a large stage built in the middle of the square, and around it, several other early freshman (or perhaps some who skipped breakfast), were talking to eachother.

"Nami-chan!" A freshman girl, apparently a friend of Nami's, came running towards them. Her long blue hair was tied up in a ponytail, waving behind her as she rushed towards her friend. She was wearing a white t-shirt with something Japanese on it, written in red, and long tight jeans.

"Ah, Vivi-chan, there you are." Nami said. "How's our rebel-boy?"

"He's doing fine." Vivi said, when reaching Nami and Zoro. "He told me the weirdest story about a guy with green hair entering the store around 3:00 AM in the morning, but he wasn't wearing any shoes! So-" She stopped when she noticed Zoro, who was glaring into space, his eye twitching as a light blush creeped over his face.

"Oh yeah, Vivi-chan, this is Zoro-kun, he's also a freshman." Nami explained.

"Nice meeting you, Zoro-kun." Vivi smiled, her eyes sliding towards his green hair.

"Yeah, whatever." Zoro mumbled, still not looking at the girl.

"So Zoro, were _you_ the one in the shop last night…?" Nami asked, a grin creeping onto her face.

"Shut up." Zoro growled and continued walking, leaving the girls behind who were laughing out loud now. Just his luck, apparently, 'rebel-boy' was that Kohza guy from the store. Before he got very far, though, the girls caught up to him with the intentions of staying with him all day. Zoro sighed. That shoe incident seemed to be screwing up his whole day…

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A couple of minutes later, most of the freshmen were gathered around the stage in the middle of the square. Most of them hadn't had any breakfast and were whining about it to each other. Zoro tried to ignore it, but got irritated so quickly that he snapped at a couple of guys standing next to him. He really needed more coffee.

"Weeeeeeelcome, beloved freshmen of East Blue Universittyyyy!" A high, hardly male voice sounded across the square. "My name is Bon Clay; please refer to me as BON CLAY-SAMA!"

Zoro looked up at the stage, shocked by who- or what- was standing there. It seemed to be a man, dressed in the weirdest outfit Zoro had ever seen. He was wearing blue puffed 'pants' (it more looked like he was wearing a beachball) with dark and light blue stripes, wich stopped a couple of centimeters above his knees. His legs were naked and unshaved and he was wearing a shirt with curly decorations in the same colours of his 'pants'. Over that he was wearing a light pink long coat with a furry collar. On his back he was wearing cheap fake wings wich wiggled at every move he made. Below and above his eyes were decorations painted with dark green paint and he was wearing a dark red colour on his lips. He had placed goggles on top of his short, black hair and on his feet he was wearing ballet-shoes.

Seeing this man standing there on the stage, making weird poses like he was a ballarina, gave Zoro a hard time restraining himself from laughing out loud. Around him he noticed other people having the same problem. Behind him, he could hear Vivi and Nami explode with laughter. Meanwhile, Bon Clay was still dancing around, making pirouettes and screaming out things in French.

"What the _hell_ is this?" Zoro whispered to Nami.

"He's the PE teacher(1)." Nami whispered back, trying to hold her laugh. "He's weird."

"No shit." Zoro sighed. God, he hoped he didn't have PE.

"Students of this universityyy, please repeeeaaaat after me! Follow my lead!" Bon Clay posed again, standing on one foot with the other leg high in the air. Then he started to dance and hop around some more on the stage screaming "un, deux, trois!" with every move he made. Nobody in the audience moved.

"Is this guy serious?" Zoro grumbled.

"I'm afraid he is." Vivi giggled. "He's always like this; his PE-classes are rather interesting."

"If he's gonna continue this, I'm outta here." Zoro said.

"Really, you shouldn't, it'll give you trouble." A happy voice behind Zoro said. "Ace left halfway the introduction day and he got almost kicked out of school. The principal said the introductions are really important." Before Zoro could turn around to see who the owner of the voice was (though he had a suspicion), he felt two arms wrap around his neck from behind and two sandal-clad feet wrapping around his waist.

"Hi, Zoro!" Luffy's head appeared next to Zoro's, as the boy had wrapped himself around Zoro, with no intention to letting go.

"What the-" Zoro, who almost choked because Luffy had wrapped his arms around his neck so tight he could hardly breath, cursed. "What the _HELL_ are you doing, brat? Let go!"

"Awww, but Zoro, you're a good horse!" The boy said in a whiny voice.

"I'm a good _what_? Just let the fuck go, kid, you're choking me!" Zoro tried to wrench Luffy's arms open, but it was no use. For such a skinny guy, he did have some armpower.

"A horse, Zoro, you're a horse!" Next to him, Nami burst into laughter again. Vivi laughed too, though she seemed a bit worried about Zoro, whose face now turned purple from the lack of air.

"Haaaaaaaa, whooooo's there making so much noise!" Bon Clay's shrill voice suddenly reached Zoro again. He hadn't noticed how much noise he was making, trying to get Luffy off his back, and with shocked eyes he stared at the stage. Bon Clay had found the source of all the noise and was now pointing at them with his manicured finger.

"You two, get on the staaaaage!" He yelled in the microphone he was holding in his hands.

"What? No way, ballerina!" Zoro had no intentions in climbing that stage at all, but before he knew it, he felt hands pushing him in the side (since Luffy was still clinging on to his back) towards the stage. Within a couple of minutes he was in the middle of the stage, a laughing Luffy still on his back.

"You two are ruining my shoooow!" Bon Clay screamed. "Aaaand your punishment will beeeee…. DANCING LESSONS! From yours truuuly!"

"What? Danci- no fucking way I'm gonna dance, pansy!" Zoro hissed, but before he could walk away, a ballet-shoe covered foot shot trough the air, nearly hitting him in the head. "WHAT THE FUCK!"

"You will dance if I say so, boooy!" Bon Clay yelled in anger. "You, on the back, get off and daaaance!"

"YOSH!" Luffy jumped from Zoro's back and landed near Bon Clay. At that moment, the ballerina was posing on one foot again.

"Ha, so cool!" Luffy chirped, as he tried to imitate Bon Clay, but failing horribly, he fell down on his butt. This didn't bother him though, as he laughed out loud again. "That's hard!"

"Aaah, it is, boy, it is! It took me years to master it!" Bon Clay said. Zoro, who was slowly backing away, took a quick look in the audience of freshmen to see Nami collapsed on the ground from laughing and Vivi barely able to stand. And they weren't the only ones. Everybody was laughing, but to his relief, they weren't laughing about him. Luffy was dancing around on the stage now too, imitating Bon Clay, falling down and laughing out loud with a huge smile on his face. This was Zoro's opportunity to leave the stage and blend into the audience again.

"Aaww, Zoro-kun, why didn't you dance?" Nami asked, tears in her eyes from laughing.

"You where the one pushing me on the damn stage, weren't you?" Zoro hissed, ready to strangle the orange-haired girl.

"One of them, yes." Nami smiled. "Oh, c'mon, it was just a joke!"

"Don't fucking joke with me!" Zoro mumbled. "And why is he here anyway, he's not even a student." Zoro pointed towards the stage, where Luffy and Bon Clay were now performing a show together.

"His school doesn't start for another week, so he hangs around the campus a lot." Vivi explained.

"Doesn't that kid have any friends to go to?" Zoro sighed. "Why can't he just go bother his brother?"

"Ace is often busy, and Luffy doesn't have that much friends on his own school." Nami said, her face turning serious. "He does have one good friend, but that guy's gone a lot."

"So he decides to bother me, someone he barely knows." Zoro said. "Wonderful, just what I needed."

"You know you're enjoying his company, Zoro-kun." Nami said with a pestering voice. "You just _loooove_ having him around."

"Would you knock it off? The kid's annoying, way too much energy." Zoro muttered. "It would be better for both him and me if he just left me alone."

"Don't let him hear that, he's kinda sensetive about that kind of thing." Vivi said with a somewhat sad voice. "Here he comes again."

"Hey Zoro, why did you leave? It was so cool!" Luffy laughed, running back to the green-haired teen. "Bon Clay is so awesome!"

"No he isn't." Zoro mumbled, barely audible.

"Hm?"

"Nothing, ignore it."

"Okay!"

"So what are we gonna do now? Stand here and listen to that guy all day long?" Zoro asked Nami.

"Nah, we're gonna take a citywalk after he's done talking. At least, that's what they did last year. You know, to introduce the students to the city?" Nami explained. Zoro nodded. At least that was a good thing. He didn't know the city at all, since he had just moved here.

After another couple of minutes of rambling by Bon Clay, the ballerina finally decided it was time to start walking. He jumped off the stage and ordered everybody to follow him. There they went, a group of about 100 freshmen, pushing and fighting to get through the gates without being squashed. Zoro, Nami, Vivi and Luffy stayed behind a bit, as none of them felt like getting hit.

"Is this gonna take all day?" Zoro asked, as they started walking, at the tail of the group freshmen. "I don't really feel like walking all day."

"It usually takes about three hours, but it also depends on how large the group is." Vivi answered. "And what might happen during the walk."

"You two seem to know a lot about this university…" Zoro mumbled.

"That's because I already did some work for the university last year, like helping and introducing new students to the rules. And Nami heard a lot from Ace." Vivi said, smiling. Zoro looked at her from the corner of his eyes, suddenly remembering the video he had watched when he had to wait in the waiting room the other day. Vivi had been on that video, welcoming the watchers to East Blue University. He nodded, suddenly noticing the raised voices next to him.

"Luffy, you know what I said, right? It's 70 bucks now!" Nami said to the young boy.

"But Nami, I still don't have the money!" Luffy whined. "Please give me some extra time!"

"NO! The more days you wait with paying, the higher the debt gets! You know how it works, Luffy!"

"But Nami-"

"NO!"

"Awww…" Luffy sighed. Zoro looked at him, wondering how old this kid really was. He really looked like a 10-year-old right now, pouting and giving Nami angry looks. He sighed deeply.

"I'll pay for him."

"Hm, what's that?" Nami asked.

Zoro sighed again. "I'll pay for the kid. For now."

"So you're saying you're paying 70 bucks for someone you hardly know?" Nami grinned. "I see…"

"Don't start thinking anything weird, you!" Zoro hissed. "He can borrow it from me and I'll promise him I won't make the debt any larger. He can pay it back when he can."

"Yay Zoro!" Luffy jumped forward, wrapping his arms around the green-haired teen's waist. "Thanks so much! I promise I'll pay it back as soon as I can!"

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Nami held up her hand. "Money."

Zoro grumbled something, taking out his wallet and getting the money out of it. Why was he walking around with 70 bucks anyway, that was way too much to be carrying around. He gave the money to Nami, pushing Luffy away from him and returning the wallet to its original place. "It's alright. Take your time."

Next to him, he heard Vivi giggle softly. He turned to her, giving her an angry look, saying:

"I know what you're thinking, stop now."

"I wasn't thinking anything, Zoro-kun, really!" Vivi giggled some more, soon joined by Nami. The two girls ran forward, away from Luffy and Zoro, and started whispering to eachother, every now and then looking over their shoulder to the freshman and the highschool kid.

Zoro sighed. "Why are you coming with us, anyway?" He asked Luffy. The kid shrugged.

"Don't got anything better to do." He smiled. "And I have some friends here!"

"Really…why don't you go bother them instead?" Zoro muttered.

"I am."

"…"

"What?"

"I don't get it."

"Get what?"

Loud sigh. "Never mind, just keep walking."

"Yosh!" Luffy suddenly started dancing again, but, to Zoro's relief, it wasn't ballet. The kid jumped around, punching his fists in the air. The green-haired teen was slightly amused at this, but did a good job hiding that. His face stayed on 'grumpy'.

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After a total of five hours walking, the huge group of freshman finally reached the school again. Everybody was exhausted and thirsty from walking in the sun for so long, except for Luffy who was still dancing around, untill Nami hit him and he fell on the floor.

"Nami!" He yelled.

"Stop being so damn active, Luffy!" Nami hissed. "You're annoying everybody! Why don't you go find Ace instead?"

"Oh yeah, Ace." Luffy jumped up. "Bye!" And ran off towards the student hostel. Zoro sighed. Finally, rest and peace. He looked at Vivi and Nami, who sat on the ground, back to back, recovering from the long walk.

"I'll see you guys later." He said, waving his hand and walking away. He heard faint 'goodbye's' from the girls as he entered the student hostel, trying to find his way to his room again. This way, he actually got to the stairs without getting lost, but on the third floor he took a left turn instead of a right, and managed to get lost yet again. After several minutes of wandering around, he magically reached room 96A again and entered it.

Ace was sitting on his bed, playing around with some matches again, as Luffy jumped on top of Zoro's bed, loudly telling the things that had happened during the introduction day.

"That Bon Clay guy is soooo cool! He can stand on one foot, you know, on his toes! And he can like spin around, real fast!" Luffy laughed. Then he noticed Zoro and stopped jumping for a moment. "Bon Clay said Zoro had to dance too, but he wouldn't. That wasn't really fair, though."

"Kid, get off my bed." Zoro grumbled. He waved his hand once as a greeting towards Ace and walked to his bed.

"Awww, but your bed is so bouncy!" Luffy whined.

"Then go home and bounce on your own bed, I'm sure it's just as bouncy." Zoro said, pushing Luffy from the bed and sitting down on it himself.

"I can't, Nojiko would yell at me again." Luffy sighed, and then noticing there was another bed in the room, rushed towards Ace. Before the black-haired man could do anything against it, Luffy had already climbed on his bed and continued his jumping. Zoro threw a 'Sorry, dude' look at Ace, before lying down and closing his eyes. Today had given him a huge headache. He had a lot of headaches lately. Well, since he got to this university.

"So, Zoro-kun, Nami told me you still don't have your school books." Ace said.

"Heh? When she told you that?"

"She stopped by a couple of minutes ago. She wondered where you were."

Crap. The girl was here before him. "Err, taking a walk." He cursed the orange-haired teen.

"You took a walk after taking a 5-hours-long walk?" Ace laughed. "Sometimes you really surprise me, Zoro-kun!"

"Yeah, whatever." Zoro mumbled.

"Anyway, we can go to the school library tomorrow, if you want. They also sell school books there."

"Yeah, sure." The green-haired teen sighed. "I'll have to get them eventually."

"Great, then that's settled." Ace smiled. After that, Zoro hardly heard anything anymore, sinking away in a deep sleep. He could hear Luffy's voice, but didn't know what he was saying. It didn't matter anymore, he just needed some sleep.

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_(1)_ _I don't know if there's still PE class on university, probably not but.. It's just so perfect for Bon Clay! And this is my university XD!_

_Yosh! End of chapter! It wasn't really what I wanted it to be, but I'm still pretty satisfied with it. I wanted to introduce more characters than Vivi and Bon Clay, but they'll have to wait for now. And omg, yes, Bon Clay! I hardly knew how to describe him, since he's not really in that much fanfics, so I didn't really have an example. Please tell me if he was IC or OOC, thankyouverymuch!_

_And thanks so much to **Digitaldreamer** for beta-reading my story and changing some of the lines into better ones! –gives One Piece plushies-_

_Oh yeah. Review. Reviews make Blok a very happy person. And it might earn you a cookie, buwhaha!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Multicolour Words  
Chapter 04  
By Gunslinger Blok**

_Wah! This chapter took me much longer than I expected. Because I was sick for a couple of days, I couldn't write anything, though I had so many ideas. I did manage to get pretty far with the script, though I'm kinda stuck with it now. I know _what_ I want to happen, but not _how_ it must happen. –sigh-_

_Anyway, thanks again for all the reviews! God, I love you guys, I've had so much fun reading them. XD Is it sick I'm actually proud I made someone choke on their food? So, people have been asking for Usopp, and yes, eventually, he'll appear. He won't have a major part in this story, though, so don't expect him all too much. I'm sorry, but I just can't stand the nose! Erhm...that'll be all, enjoy the story!_

_**Disclaimer:** I recently bought a One Piece graphic novel, does that count? One Piece is copyright Eiichiro Oda._

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The next morning, Zoro was awoken far too damn early. It was around 8 AM when Luffy was jumping around on his bed, almost crushing Zoro. Wait… Luffy? What the hell was he doing here?

"Damnit, kid, get off my bed!" After it had taken his brain a couple of seconds to register it was indeed Luffy jumping around on his bed, he pulled away his blanket on which Luffy was standing, and made the boy fall onto the floor.

"Hey, that wasn't very nice!" Luffy pouted, standing up again and straightening the black-and-white hoodie he was wearing today.

"Well, it wasn't very nice of you to wake me up this early either." Zoro mumbled, burying his face in his pillow.

"Ace told me to wake you up; we're going to the library." Luffy said, as he sat down on Ace's bed.

"But why so damn early!" Zoro hissed. "And what do you mean by 'we'? You're not coming too, are you?"

"Of course I'm coming! I asked yesterday and Ace said I could."

"Great. Perfect. Wonderful. Five more minutes." Zoro sighed, covering his face with his blanket. Another day, or rather at least another morning, stuck with that bouncy little brother.

"No, you have to get up now!" Zoro heard Luffy yell, right before he felt the boy jumping on his back, almost breaking it, and laughing out loud.

"Goddamnit!" Zoro turned around, pushing the boy off his bed again and sitting up himself. "Fine, I'll get up! Don't ever fucking jump on my back again like that! Can't you go bother Ace or something? Where is he anyway?"

"Eating." Luffy answered. "I already ate, though I wanted more, but Sanji kicked me out of the kitchen. So I decided to wake you up!"

"How nice of you…" Zoro said. "Now get the fuck out of my room, so I can change."

"Yosh!" Luffy jumped up, apparently happy that he finally managed to wake Zoro up, and left the room. "I'll be in the hallway!"

Zoro got out of his bed, yawning loudly, and went to his closet. A quick look at the window, of wich the curtains already were open, let him know it probably was a warm, sunny day. Knowing that, he took a plain dark blue t-shirt and plain black pants and put them on. He then went back to his bed and took his cellphone and iPod-mini from the cupboard. He then left the room and entered the hall, where he was almost tackled by an incredibly enthusiastic Luffy.

As they went down the hall to the stairs, Luffy kept on babling to Zoro. Mostly about the library, university, Ace, the highschool he went to and meat, but Zoro didn't hear a thing of it. His thoughts went to a nice hot cup of coffee he was going to get as soon as they got to the cafeteria. He was snapped out of those thoughts when he heard Luffy say the name 'Nico Robin'. Why did that sound so familiar?

"Nico…Robin?" The green-haired teen mumbled.

"Yeah, she works at the library! She's really nice, but a little strange. She doesn't really say much and if she says something I usually don't understand it!" Luffy laughed, as if he was proud of it. Zoro looked at the boy from the corners of his eyes, caught up in his own thoughts again. Why did the name Nico Robin sound so damn familiar? Eh, whatever, he would just ignore it for now. It was too early to think about it.

The cafeteria was almost completely empty. Most students were still sound asleep in their rooms, none of them was stupid enough to go the the library this early in the morning. Why couldn't they go a couple of hours later?

Ignoring Luffy's cries for Ace, Zoro went to the kitchen. He needed coffee first, but when he reached the kitchen, he knew even coffee was going to be difficult to get.

"What the hell are you doing here, Marimo?" Sanji said, lighting a cigarette and raising his famous curled eyebrow.

"Shut up and just get me some coffee." Zoro growled, trying to ignore Sanji's insult. It was too fucking early.

"Not if you ask it like that, asshole."

"Look, just get me the coffee and I'll leave you alone."

"Very tempting but I don't feel like doing you a favor."

"Goddamn-"

"SAAANJJJIIIII!" Luffy's loud voice interrupted Zoro, as the boy ran towards the kitchen. "FOOOD!"

"Damnit, Luffy, I already told you I'm not giving you any more food!" Sanji yelled. "You don't even go to this university, the only reason I'm giving you food here is because you're Ace's brother. You already ate half of the food supplies for this week!"

"Aww, but Sanji!" Luffy had reached the kitchen, and was trying to enter it, but was stopped by Sanji's foot pushing against his stomach. "I'm still hungry!"

"Then go buy some food somewhere! Stop bothering me and go to Ace, he's waiting for you." Sanji said, as he kicked Luffy a couple of meters back. "He's in the corner."

Ace was indeed sitting in the corner. However, he had fallen asleep again and his face was resting on his plate, his orange cowboyhat had fallen off. His arm was still raised in the air, his hand holding a sandwich, like he was about to take a bit when he fell asleep. Luffy laughed out loud while running towards his brother. Zoro just sighed. He looked at Sanji, knowing by the cook's look he still wasn't getting any coffee, and then followed Luffy. It wasn't like him to give up like this, but it was just too damn early for a fight. He'd kick curly-eyebrow's ass later.

Meanwhile Luffy had managed to wake Ace up, who was now wiping his face clean with a napkin. Luffy had snatched Ace's half-eaten sandwich and had stuffed it in his mouth. With a contented look on his face, he swallowed and grinned.

"Ah, Zoro-san, you're awake." Ace threw the napkin in a trashbin and stood. "Do you want some breakfast, or should we go?"

"Let's go and get this over with." Zoro sighed. "But can we stop somewhere to get coffee?"

"Sure, let's go." Ace said, as he started walking towards the doors of the cafeteria. "C'mon, Luffy."

"Yosh!" Luffy yelled. "Horseeeee!"

"What?" Zoro looked over his shoulder, and noticed Luffy barging towards him. "No fucking way!" The green-haired teen jumped away, making Luffy, who had just jumped towards Zoro, fly trough the air and crashing into a table. "I'm not a goddamn horse, Luffy!"

"You're no fun at all, Zoro!" Luffy whined while he got up from the floor, completely unharmed.

"I can live with that." Zoro answered. He and Luffy left the cafeteria, while Ace thanked Sanji for breakfast. The cook waved and smiled, a smile that, Zoro noticed, was similair to the ones he would throw at the ladies. The student sighed and decided to ignore it.

Leaving the student hostel and crossing the square towards the large gates, Luffy decided it was time for a song. While jumping around Zoro and Ace, his loud voice filled the square and, probably, woke up a bunch of students.

"Minami no shima wa attakee- paina-puru puru attama pokapoka aho baka!(1)" The young boy sang, making pirouette's and imitating the moves he had seen Bon Clay do. "Kita no shima wa samui- Hakkoi koi koi attama buruburu aho baka!"

"Luffy, you should keep it down before you wake up any of the students!" Ace said, giving Luffy a soft tap against his strawhat.

"So? Why aren't they awake yet anyway, it's a beautiful day, they should play outside!" Luffy laughed, readjusting his hat.

"Students don't really play outside, kid." Zoro mumbled. "You probably shouldn't play outside anymore too. How old are you anyway?"

"17." Luffy answered.

"What? You're 17? No way!" Zoro, honestly surprised by this, glared at the boy. "Then why the hell do you act like a 10-year-old."

"I don't act like a 10-year-old; all the others just act like 50-year-old's!" Luffy contradicted, sticking out his tongue.

"You really shouldn't argue with him, you'll never win." Ace laughed. Zoro sighed again, looking at Luffy and pulling the strawhat over the boy's eyes. Immediately, Luffy tripped and fell down, his hand trying to grasp anything that would keep him from touching the hard ground. He grabbed Zoro's arm, almost pulling the green-haired teen with him in his fall, but managed to stay standing.

"You're mean!" The raven-haired boy screamed, while he readjusted his strawhat once more, and ran off towards the gates. He heard Zoro say something behind him, but ignored it. From the tone of the student's voice, Luffy knew he was cursing.

"What the hell is wrong with that kid?" Zoro asked. He was surprised Ace started laughing. He expected his roommate to scold at him. He didn't answer, though, and kept walking untill they reached the gates. Luffy was waiting there, jumping up and down impatiantly. They crossed the streets and walked towards the building across the university.

"That's the library?" Zoro asked, looking up at the building. It was a large old building, probably made at the beginning of the 18th century. The bricks had a soft yellow colour and a large amount of windows and some curly decorations made it look impressive.

"Yup, let's go inside." Ace opened the oakwood doors and went inside, followed by his bouncy little brother and Zoro. Inside the building was even more impressive, but didn't fit the outside at all. The outside was rather plain, with only a couple of decorations around the window-frames. Inside, however, was filled with those same curly decorations, but also huge ceilingpaintings telling ancient Greek legends, antique chandeliers and shining white-marble floors. And that was just the hallway.

Ace continued walking, followed by Luffy and Zoro, entering an incredibly huge room, filled with large wooden bookcases stuffed with books. The ceiling, wich was about 6 meters high, was decorated once again with paintings, portraying stories of ancient heroes and their adventures. One huge chandelier, probably about 4 meters across, was hanging in the middle of the room, giving just enough light to read the titles of the hundreds of books. The three men didn't stop, though, and kept walking, untill they reached the other side of the room.

Sitting behind a large wooden desk, was a woman with black hair untill her shoulders. She was wearing a plain white shirt and was reading in a leather tied book. It was not untill Ace had reached the desk and placed his hands on it, that she looked up from her book.

"Good morning, Robin-san." Ace said. "How have you been?"

"Good morning to you too, Ace-san. I've been well, thank you." She smiled, and Zoro noticed it wasn't really a happy smile. There was something about this woman, especially her light blue eyes and the contented expression on her face.

"Robiiiin!" Luffy waved, even though he was standing right before the desk, almost hitting Zoro in the head.

"Ah, Senchou-san, you've come too?" Robin said. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"He wanted to come with us," Ace explained. "To get Zoro-kun some books."

Like she just noticed him, Robin looked at Zoro, scanning him. Zoro, however, knew Robin had known he was here from the moment they had entered the building. There was something unpleasantly familiar about this woman.

"You're Zoro-kun." It sounded more like a statement than a question. "Nice to meet you, I'm Nico Robin."

"Likewise." Zoro said. "Why're you calling the kid senchou?"

"When Luffy was still a kid, he used to play he was a pirate a lot. Since he didn't have many friends, he played with Robin-san." Ace explained. "We've known her for years."

"Those really were some amusing games," Robin said. "He only had one friend to play pirate with, though. I believe he was the first mate of Senchou-san's pirateship." The raven-haired woman looked at Zoro. Zoro looked back, refusing to look away from the piercing eyes of the librarian. He felt like she could see in his soul, his memories, his emotions, like she already knew everything about him, but still he refused to look away. After almost a minute, Robin smiled. "But how can I help you? I believe you're looking for books? We have plenty of those here."

"He needs schoolbooks, but he doesn't know wich classes he's following." Ace said. "Since you have access to all the student information, could you perhaps help us?"

"Of course, please wait for a while." Robin stood and left the room trough a small wooden door behind the desk.

"I don't like her…" Zoro muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.

"Why not? I think she's great! She's like all mysterious and stuff!" Luffy chirped. "And she's a great archeologist! When she was still a member of my piratecrew, she would explore ancient ruins and examine rocks and stuff and she could tell what the people who lived in those ruins years and years ago were like! She's so awesome!"

Zoro decided to ignore the boy. He still couldn't believe Luffy was really 17 years old. It stayed silent for a while, wich Luffy soon found boring and decided to wander off, exploring 'the dungeon'. After a couple of minutes, Nico Robin returned, holding a freshly printed paper in her hands.

"Here is your schedule, Zoro-kun." She handed the papers to him. "If you would follow me to the back, we'll get you your books." She left trough the wooden door again, and Zoro followed her. Ace wanted to follow, but noticed Luffy was climbing one of the bookcases, and hurried to his little brother to get him down.

It was a small room they entered, wich looked even smaller because of all the crates and boxes of school books piled on top of eachother. In the corner was a computer, with a printer, wich Nico Robin probably had used to find his student information. As Zoro stood there, still near the door of the room, Robin was searching in several boxes and crates for books. After a couple of minutes, she found all the books Zoro would need, and handed the big pile to Zoro.

"There, I believe that's all. If I'm missing something, you can always return here." She said. "I'll send a check to the student hostel."

"Thanks." Zoro left the room again, his view blocked by the large amount of books he was holding. He put them down on the desk for a while, before searching for Ace and Luffy. The highschool boy was dancing on top one of the bookcases, singing his weird song again, while Ace was desperately trying to get him down. Zoro sighed and walked towards the bookcase on wich Luffy was dancing.

"Oi, kid, get down, we're leaving." He said.

"I don't wanna leave, its fun here!" Luffy yelled, jumping on another bookcase, making the one he jumped from wiggle dangeriously.

"Luffy, please get down, you're gonna break something!" Ace said. Zoro sighed. His headache was coming back again. The lack of coffee and a morning with Luffy really wasn't the best combination.

"Kid, if you get down now, I'll buy you some ice cream." Zoro finally said, and before he knew it, Luffy had jumped down, almost on top op Zoro.

"YAY, ice cream! Letsgoletsgoletsgo!" He grabbed Zoro's arm and dragged him towards the door.

"Oi, wait, let go, I don't have my books." The green-haired teen tried to get free, but Luffy's grip was incredibly strong.

"I'll get them." He heard Ace say behind him. "Bye Robin-san, we'll visit again soon. Thanks for your help!"

"No problem, Ace-san. Goodbye!" Robin said, before sitting down behind the desk again. Zoro looked over his shoulder and noticed the almost sad smile was replaced by an amused look. A look that looked far, far too familiar. Quickly, Zoro looked in front of him again, as he was dragged outside by Luffy. Ace followed.

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"Icecream icecream icecream icecream!" Luffy had been repeated the same word over and over again ever since they left the library. It was slowly driving Zoro crazy, as he wished he would have at least one of his katana's with him right now. Ace was just smiling. He was used to Luffy's hyperactivity, so the jumping and word-repeating didn't bother him at all.

"You're pretty strong, aren't you, Zoro-kun?" Ace suddenly said. Zoro, who had taken the books from Ace again once Luffy had let him go, was holding the pile with only one hand. "You're holding all those with one arm and I could barely do it with two."

"It's really not that heavy.." Zoro mumbled. He knew that was a lie, though. The pile of books was indeed very heavy; yet, he was lifting them with only one hand, the other hand in his pocket. This strength was something Zoro had always had. Ofcourse, he wasn't as strong when he was still a kid, as he was know, but he had always been much, much stronger than the people surrounding him. He had never paid too much attention to it.

"ICE CREAM!" Luffy suddenly yelled in Zoro's ear, making the student snap out of his thoughts.

"What the hell? Kid, don't fucking do that!" The green-haired teen hissed.

"I had to! You were all spaced out and were about the walk past the icecream store!" Luffy said, pointing towards a small store wich they indeed has almost passed.

"You could've just poked me or something." Zoro mumbled.

"You told me not to poke."

"Just get into the store."

"ICE CREAAAM!" Luffy screamed, charging towards the store and almost crashing into the door in his hurry to enter. Ace followed, still smiling dumbly. Zoro felt the urge to just run away now, but ignored it and also entered the store.

When Luffy finally had his ice cream (ordering almost every flavour there was), and Ace and Zoro some soda, they went outside again and sat down on the bench in front of the store. Within minutes there was more icecream on Luffy's face then there was in his stomach.

"You got some icecream on your face, Luffy." Ace pointed out.

"Oh? Where?" The raven-haired boy tried to lick his own face, but didn't get much further with his tongue than the tip of his nose.

"Everywhere." Zoro answered. He finished his soda and threw the can in a nearby trashbin. "I'm going back to the student hostel."

"And I better get you home, Luffy." Ace said. "Nojiko's waiting for you."

"Aww, but why? It's not even in the afternoon yet!" Luffy said, now taking icecream from his face with his fingers and licking those clean.

"You promised to clean your room today." The older teen threw his sodacan away too and looked at his little brother with a severe look on his face. "Nojiko's gonna get mad if you don't clean your room today and you know how she is mad." A shiver went down Luffy's back.

"Fine." Luffy pouted. "If I clean it real fast, can I come back to the university again?"

"Sure you can. But be sure to make your room real tidy, okay?" Ace said. "If you want, Zoro-kun, I could show you some more of the city. Nojiko lives in a whole different part then the places where you've been on your introduction day."

"Eh, that's okay, I'll just go back to the stu-" Zoro started, before being interrupted.

"Ofcourse he's coming! Zoro wants to meet Nojiko, right? She's really nice!" Luffy said. "She isn't really like a mother, though she kind of adopted me. She's more like a sister!"

"Look, that's okay but, I really have to get back an-" Zoro tried again, but Luffy flatly ignored him.

"LET'S GO!" He grabbed Zoro's arm again and tried to drag him with him again, but failed when the green-haired teen held him back. He sighed.

"Fine, I'll come; just let me grab my books, okay?" He said. "And let go of my arm."

"Yay! Zoro's coming home with me!" Luffy chirped, jumping and already starting to walk. Zoro grabbed his books when he realized the sentence 'Zoro's coming home with me' could be taken in a totally wrong way. He just wished Luffy would stop singing it.

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By the time they had even reached the center of the city, were Nojiko lived, it was already 1:00 PM. Luffy kept on pointing things out in windows of stores and rushing into other stores, followed by Ace who would drag him outside again. Zoro just kept on walking, slowly, so he wouldn't lose Ace and Luffy. He still didn't know the city and didn't feel like getting lost.

After walking for another half an hour, the freshman noticed a gym. Back in his old town they didn't have a gym, but Zoro did work out every day. Since his room in the student hostel was just too tiny for any of his workouts, perhaps he could join the gym and train there. He said to Ace he was going to take a look, and entered the gym together with his roommate. They both ignored Luffy, who was singing his song again and dancing around random people.

When they left the gym again, Luffy had managed to climb up a lamp post, dancing on it dangeriously. Zoro was now a member of the gym which, surprisingly hadn't been very expensive. He'd have to check it out tomorrow. Continuing their walk to Nojiko's house, both Ace and Zoro were silent, looking on as Luffy jumped down the lamp post and started wiggling and dancing around again. It actually amused Zoro. A little bit.

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Nojiko lived in a very tiny appartment, part of a rather decayed building. As Ace knocked on the door of appartment 4B, Zoro took a look around. The hall where they were standing was dirty, as if it hadn't been cleaned in a long time. The floor was sticky and muddy and the ceiling was covered with spiderwebs. Every now and then, a cockroach walked by. The freshman twitched his eye when he accidentily stepped on one.

The door was opened by a young woman with light lila-coloured hair. She was wearing a yellow tanktop with long jeans and a pink ribbon in her hair. A curly darkblue tattoo crossed from one shoulder to the other.

"Good afternoon, Nojiko, I brought back Luffy!" Ace greeted. He pushed Luffy, who was pouting, inside the small apartment.

"Thanks." Nojiko simply said. "Luffy, go clean your room."

"Aww, but Nojiko-" Luffy started.

"You promised you would clean your room today, so you better get started." Nojiko said. Her voice stayed normal, but apparently sounded different to Luffy, as he ran off with a yelp to go clean his room. She turned to Ace again. "Wanna come in?"

"That's okay, Zoro-kun probably wants to go back to the student hostel." Ace said, pointing to Zoro.

"New roommate?" Nojiko asked. When Ace nodded he held out her hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Nojiko. I take care of Luffy."

"Yeah, likewise." Zoro said, as he took Nojiko's hand and shook it. "It's okay, though, I can find find the student hostel myse-"

"Zoro has to come in too!" Luffy's voice suddenly sounded. "Why do you want to go back to the student hostel so fast?"

Zoro felt the urge to say 'to get rid of you', but managed to keep silent. He sighed once more. "No reason, actually."

"Then come in." Nojiko stepped aside so Ace and Zoro could enter the room. Zoro put down his books on a round wooden table in the middle of the room they just entered and took another look around.

Other than the hall, Nojiko's appartment was really clean and tidy. It was small, though, with a family room and a kitchen as well as a dining-room. There was one window; over which the blue curtains were closed. There were three doors, two of them closed, and one open giving view to what apparently was Luffy's room. The boy was jumping and running around, trying to get rid of art supplies, laundry and clean clothes, toys, comic books and stuff that Zoro couldn't identify.

Ace and Zoro sat down by the table, Ace talking to Nojiko while Zoro stared at Luffy. So this is where that boy lived. This appartment was way too tiny for him; no wonder he went out so much. It was a nice appartment, though, despite the fact that there was hardly room for two people. He was soon snapped out of his thoughts, when something hard hit him in the head, almost making him, and the chair on which he was sitting, fall backwards.

"What the-" He grumbled, bowing to grab the rock that had hit him. "Why are there rocks flying around, damnit?"

"Haha, sorry, Zoro!" Luffy said. "I tripped and then the rock flew out of my hands and hit you in the head! I'm glad the rock isn't damaged."

"You're worrying about the damn rock?" Zoro hissed, throwing it back to Luffy.

"It's a special rock, you know." Ace said. "Luffy got it from Shanks-san, when he came back from one of his adventures. It has the fossile of some weird bug in it."

"Whatever." Zoro sighed, rubbing his forehead where the rock had hit him. "A rock's a rock."

"Here." Nojiko gave Zoro a glass of coke as she sat down across him. "I figured you might've been thirsty."

"Thanks."

"So you're a freshman too, eh?"

"Yup."

"So is Nami, my stepsister. You already met her, right?"

"Yup."

"And you already owe her money."

"Yu- wait, what? How d'you know?"

"I know my sister, as soon as she meets someone; she tries to get money from them." Nojiko smiled, taking a sip from her own coke. Zoro started drinking his coke, thinking how Nami was different from Nojiko. Okay, so they weren't really related, but stepsisters. Still, if they grew up together, they should've been a little bit alike, right?

"DONE!" Luffy ran out of his room, almost crashing into the table. "I'm done cleaning, Nojiko!"

"No you're not; you just stuffed everything under your bed."

"Man, how did you know?"

"I didn't, you just told me."

This took Luffy's brain several moments to register. "Nojiko!"

"Go clean your room."

"NO!"

"Luffy, I'm warning you."

"I don't want to!"

"Ehh.. I think I'm gonna go home." Zoro said. He put down his glass and stood, reaching for his books. He really didn't feel like watching Luffy and Nojiko fight. "Thanks for the coke; I'll see you guys later."

"Hang on, I'll come too." Ace took the last draught of his drink, put down his glass and also stood. "Bye, Nojiko."

"Bye Ace, Zoro-kun." Nojiko said. "Luffy, you're going to clean your room right now, before I get really angry, you hear me?"

"Naaah, why are you leaving already?" Luffy said with a whiny voice, totally ignoring Nojiko.

"Because you need to clean your room, little brother." Ace grinned. "Have fun!"

"Ace, you're mean!" Luffy yelled. Ace's grin just grew bigger as he left the appartment, followed by Zoro.

"Bye kid." He muttered, before closing the door behind him. As they left the building, they could still hear Nojiko's raised and Luffy's whiny voices.

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_(1) Yes, that is indeed Luffy's Island Song; wich can be heard in episode 169 of the anime, lol! I'm not sure what he's singing but I believe it was something about a country in the east with the best meat or whatever. I absolutely adore the song and I still hate Wiper for interrupting Luffy before he could start the third verse!_

_Finito already! And with this chapter, I managed to screw up my entire script, lol! Now I'll have to rewrite everything –sigh- Ahwell, in the end, I hope it's worth it. And yesh, I know, making Luffy play pirate-games when he was young is cliché and all, but I couldn't help myself! Besides, it might be a part of the story. Not sure yet, since I just messed with my own script –cough-_

_I'm a bit worried about the script though. I'm not sure if you guys would like it, lol! And after almost finishing it, I realized it's sortof based on the story of a certain anime. I hadn't realized it, since I've watched that series a long, very long time ago, and I already partly forgot it. I'm still gonna continue and follow the story I have in mind, so I hope you guys don't hate me too much for (exidentily) stealing stuff from other series XD! And no, I'm not telling you wich series. That might ruin the fun, haha!_

_Once again, thanks so much, **Digitaldreamer**, for beta-reading the story! If I had more One Piece plushies I would give them to you, but I don't XD I do have some One Piece lollypops you can have! (Whoa, they actually excist in Japan! You can lick Zoro! And that sounds so wrong…)_

_I hope everybody was In Character! Especially Nojiko, since once again, it was a character you don't find often in fanfics! So please let me know if she was OOC, thankyou! And review, reviews make me so happy XD no seriously, they make my day!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Multicolour Words  
Chapter 5  
By GunslingerBlok**

_And yet another chapter arrives! I'm finally slowly getting into the story, I think. Something major might happen this chapter. Not sure yet, since I don't know what I'm gonna write while writing this intro, lol. Sorry it took me so long, though, but things like test week (Totally screwed that up) and Easter (Happy late Easter everybody!) kept me busy. Plus it's my birthday at the end of the month and my mom wants to leave for a couple of days of vacation on that day, which I've been trying to fight desperately, since I don't wanna go. Anyway, have fun reading!_

_**Disclaimer:** Oh, the things I could do if I owned One Piece –sigh- One Piece is copyright Eiichiro Oda._

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The next morning Zoro finally got to sleep in without anyone bothering him. When he awoke around 11:00 AM, he noticed Ace had already left the room and was probably having breakfast downstairs. After staying in bed for another half an hour, the freshman got up, took a shower, got dressed and also went downstairs for his breakfast. The cafeteria was the only thing he could finally find without getting lost in the student hostel.

When he got to the cafeteria, Zoro expected to find Ace there. The pyromaniac was nowhere to be found, however, but Zoro thought he may have had other occupations. Surely he had a job or something? When the green-haired teen went to the kitchen for some coffee, he found out the stupid love cook was missing too, making this task much easier.

Slowly walking across the square of the student hostel with a nice hot cup of coffee in one hand and a sports bag in the other, Zoro decided this could actually become a good day. The sun was shining, it was warm outside, he was rested and there were no Luffy's to bother him. Quietly enjoying this, he left the area of the student hostel to cross the road and following the same way he had yesterday. He was planning to check out that gym today.

When reaching the gym, almost two hours later than he had planned, Zoro entered the large building. Inside it was quiet and only a few people were working out. A young girl, not much older than him, with short dark blue hair and red glasses walked towards him. She appeared to be working at the gym.

"Can I help you?" She asked, putting up a smile.

"Perhaps. I just became a member yesterday, so I'm not sure what to do." Zoro explained, glaring over the girl's shoulder to the large room behind her, which was seperated from the entry hall with glass plates.

"Name, please."

"Roronoa Zoro."

"Right, please follow me." The girl said, walking to the other room. "I'll first show you the locker rooms, where you can change. Then I'll give you a short tour and help you with the machines." Zoro just nodded, and followed the girl.

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"Sir, SIR!" The girl yelled, almost panicking. "You're damaging the machine, please stop sir!"

"What the hell? Who made these things so darn weak?" Zoro hissed, as smoke began to waft up from the machine he was using.

"SIR, STEP AWAY FROM THE MACHINE, STEP AWAY!" The girl yelled, trying to grab Zoro's arm to pull him back. The green-haired teen jumped back himself, however, when sparks started flying from the machine.

"Oh no, look what you've done!" The girl sighed, not knowing what to do. "Oh, this never happened before! What should I do, what should I do?"

"Tashigi!"

"Ah, Smoker-san!" The blue-haired girl turned around, almost falling down because of the spin. A tall, muscled man came walking towards them, two cigars hanging from his mouth. He ran his hand through his short, light hair and blew out some smoke before speaking again.

"Tashigi, what's going on here?"

"S-Smoker-san, I'm so sorry, but this man here, he sortof destroyed the m-machine and I don't know what to do!" The girl, apparently named Tashigi, stuttered.

"Take out the plug." Smoker said.

"Y-yes, sir!" Tashigi said, jumping behind the machine, which was still sending sparks everywhere. After a couple of seconds, the machine lost its power and the sparks stopped. All this time, Zoro had just been standing there.

"Kid," Smoker turned to Zoro. "What the hell are you thinking destroying my machines like that?"

"It's not my fault!" Zoro immediately backfired. "These stupid machines are just too damn weak!"

"You're the first one to break them, boy, don't you tell me the machines are weak!" Smoker said, his voice remaining calm. "Either you are incredibly strong, or you just did something weird."

"I didn't do anything weird, this thing just suddenly broke!" Zoro snapped. "And why the hell is a _health center_ owned by a guy smoking two Cigars at the same time?"

"Leave the Cigars out of this, kid." Smoker said, now getting slightly irritated. "Just get the hell out of my gym."

"For crying out loud!" Zoro sighed. "Fine, whatever, I don't wanna work out in a gym with fucked up machines anyway." He then barged off to the locker rooms to get changed.

When leaving the gym a couple of minutes later, the freshman decided this day wasn't so good afterall. In fact, this probably was the suckiest beginning of a day since he got here, including the wake-up call from Luffy. He slowly started walking back to the student hostel, his sportsbag hanging over his shoulder, quietly mumbling all sorts of insults towards that smoking guy and the blue-haired girl of the gym all the way. He was so caught up in his own thoughts, he hardly noticed that familiar sound of sandals on the cement sidewalk pattering towards him.

"Zoro!" Luffy, who wasn't all bouncy and hyperactive, but actually looked panicked for once, waved his hands above his head to catch the freshman's attention.

"Hey, Luffy-kun." Zoro looked up, waiting for the boy to reach him. "You okay?"

"No! Well, yes, I am, but Nojiko isn't!" The boy panted, like he had ran around the whole town a couple of times. "Do you know where Ace is? I can't find him and he won't answer his cellphone!"

"Haven't seen him all day, he left before I woke up." Zoro said. He felt something sting his heart, when Luffy looked dissapointed hearing this. This kid wasn't supposed to be looking like this; it wasn't right to see Luffy anything other than happy and bouncy. "What happened, is Nojiko-san hurt?"

"Y-Yeah, she fell down the stairs!" Luffy said, whiping his forehead. He continued talking, but Zoro hardly heard him. Fell down the stairs? Those words immediately brought back the memories of her, of Kuina. Kuina, who had broken her neck in that fall…

"Wait, wait, Luffy-kun, hold on!" Zoro said. "Is she okay? I mean… alive?"

"She's still alive; they brought her to the hospital. But Ace needs to know this!" Luffy said, beginning to panick again. "I already went to the student hostel twice, Nami and Vivi are already in the hospital, but I just can't find Ace! Or Sanji! Sanji should know this too! I just can't find them!"

"Kid, calm down." Zoro said, grabbing Luffy's shoulder in order to get him to stand still. "You go back to the hospital, I'll go find Ace-san and that damn love cook, okay?"

"Really? You would do that?" Luffy's face immediately brightened up. "Thanks so much, Zoro! Be sure to check the city, though! I already went to the library and Robin told me she would send Ace to the hospital when she would see him. And Kohza is keeping an eye on the student hostel."

"Yeah yeah, I'll check the city, just go to that hospital." Zoro grunted.

"Thanks again, Zoro! I owe you one!" The kid said, waving before running off again.

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It had been three hours since Zoro met Luffy. All this time, the green-haired teen had been wandering around the city. He had visited every street, every place at least twice now, some places even more because he got lost. Exhausted from all the walking, the freshman sat down on the edge of a fountain, putting down the sportsbag he had been carrying around all day. He sighed deeply, staring in front of him, when he saw that far too familiar orange cowboy hat floating above the crowd. Zoro immediately jumped up and ran towards it, leaving his sportsbag behind.

"ACE-SAN!" Zoro yelled, trying to get trough the crowd. "Hold on, Ace-san!" To his relief, the orange cowboy hat stopped moving, and turned around to reveal the confused face of Ace. Next to him, a blonde dressed in a nice black suit also turned around. So the love cook had been with him the entire time…

"Zoro-san, what's the matter? You look exhausted." Ace said, smiling like he always did.

"I _am_ exhausted, damnit! I've been looking all over for the two of you." Zoro grumbled. "There's something wrong with Nojiko-san."

"What? What happened to her?" Sanji asked, sharing the same shocked expression with Ace.

"She fell down the stairs or something." Zoro explained. "Luffy-kun told me to send you guys to the hospital."

"Well, let's go then!" Ace said right away, running in the opposite direction in which he was walking first. Sanji followed him, and after a couple of seconds Zoro followed too. Sure, he had only met Nojiko once, but he was still worried.

After a good 15 minutes of running, the three men, panting from the long run, reached the hospital. However, before they could enter, Vivi came running towards them from the hospital.

"Finally, there you are! What took you so long?" She asked.

"Cactus-head over there couldn't find us." Sanji said, pointing his finger to Zoro.

"What was that, dartboard?"

"Stop it, now's not the time to fight!" Ace snapped. "Vivi-chan, how is she doing?"

"She's fine now." Vivi said. "She broke her arm and has a pretty bad concussion, but she'll be fine within a couple of weeks. She has to stay in the hospital, though."

Ace let out a deep sigh of relief, before following Vivi into the hospital. Sanji followed too, after throwing a dirty look at Zoro, who followed last, trying to keep himself from strangling the love cook. When he entered the hospital, the green-haired teen felt a strange sort of notoriety, like he had been in the hospital before. He took a look around, but couldn't find anything familiar. He slowly followed the others, but even before he got past the entrance hall, he knew something was wrong. His breath caught, his heart started beating faster. He was sweating and could hardly bearth anymore, before everything went black and he hit the floor.

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"_Zo-chan!" A young cheerful voice called, followed by laughter._

"_I told you not to call me that! It's Zoro, ZORO!" A much younger Zoro, not even 8 years old, yelled at the child he was following. They ran trough the halls of the building, tripping over their own feet, and over eachother, laughing even when they got hurt. They continued their game, following eachother throughout the entire building, which seemed to be really large. After awhile they stopped, exhausted from their game, and sat down against a wall. Both were panting, large smiles on their faces._

"_Zo-chan, what are they gonna do to us today?" The child next to Zoro asked._

"_Dun' know." Zoro answered. "What makes you think they're gonna do something today?"_

"_I heard the lady from the third floor talk about it." The child said, drawing imaginary circles on the floor. "I don't like it here." Zoro looked at his young friend, but didn't say anything. Of course his friend didn't like it here. The green-haired boy himself didn't like it here either, none of the children did. But this was their life and he had accepted it._

"_Hey." Zoro said, to catch his friends attention. He took the child's hand in his and squeezed in it a little. "Feel like hiding?"_

_The child looked up, a glimpse of hope in the eyes. "But what if they find out? You know what they did last time…"_

"_Yeah, I know." The green-haired boy mumbled. "But… we'll just have to be sure they don't find out then, okay?"_

"_Okay!" The child smiled brightly and stood. Zoro also stood, still holding his friend's hand and started running, leading the child trough the hallways. "We're gonna find the best hiding-spot ever, right?"_

"_Of course we are."_

"_Yay! Thanks for being here with me, Zo-chan!"_

"_No problem. And don't call me that!"_

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"Zoro, wake up!"

Someone grabbed his shoulders, softly shaking him to get him to wake up. He already was awake, damnit. A shock of pain shot trough his head when he tried to open his eyes.

"Luffy, you really shouldn't do that." That was Ace's voice, wasn't it? "He needs rest."

"But he just opened his eyes, just for a second! He's awake!" Yup, that was Luffy, his loud voice giving him an even bigger headache than he already had.

"Perhaps he is, but he still needs to rest. Just sit down for a moment." Ace said. Luffy's hands left Zoro's shoulders as he heard the boy sitting down. He knew the kid was pouting and smiled at this.

"See, he smiled!" Luffy's voice came again. "Zoro, just open your eyes, we know you're awake!"

"Luffy-kun, hush!" This voice belonged to Vivi. "He had a hard fall, he probably has a huge headache!"

"Thanks Vivi-chan, indeed I do." Zoro softly mumbled, keeping his eyes close. "What the hell happened? And don't you dare to tell me, Luffy; your voice is too loud." He knew the boy was pouting at this again.

"We don't know what happened." Vivi explained. Zoro could feel her sitting down at the end of his bed. "One moment we were going to Nojiko-san's room, the other moment you just… fainted."

"Do you remember anything?" Ace asked.

"Not really," Zoro answered. "It felt like something was choking me." He slowly opened his eyes, giving them the time to adjust to the bright lights surrounding him. A shock of pain went trough his head again, but he ignored it and kept his eyes open. "How's Nojiko-san?"

"She's fine, but she'll have to stay in the hospital for a while. She wanted to visit you, but the doctor won't let her leave her bed. Nami-chan and Sanji-kun are with her now." Vivi said. She sighed. "Nami's really worried, she won't leave the room."

"Zoro-kun, you should lay down!" Ace warned, when he noticed Zoro was trying to sit up. "The doctor said you need to rest a lot."

"The hell I need to rest, I'll get up whenever I want." Zoro grumbled, but when he finally sat up a shot of pain went trough his head again. He closed his eyes for a moment and suddenly remembered the dream he had. Who had been that child? Zoro couldn't even remember if it was a boy or a girl. And where had they been? He sighed and opened his eyes again, which met the darkbrown eyes of Luffy, only a few inches away.

"L-Luffy-kun, what are you doing?" Zoro stuttered, pushing the boy back. He hadn't even noticed Luffy climbing on his bed.

"You okay?" The boy asked. "You just closed your eyes and wouldn't open them…"

"I'm fine, just get the hell off my bed." Zoro said. "I need to get dressed…"

"Zoro-kun, you're not actually concidering going home already? The doctor told us you need to stay in the hospital for at least another night!" Ace walked over to the bed, trying to push Zoro down again.

"Well, I don't care what the doctor said, I'm going back to the student hostel, damnit." Zoro pushed Ace's hands away and got out of bed, before he could notice he was only wearing his underwear. Behind him, Vivi blushed and quickly turned around. Zoro hurried back into his own clothes, which were laying on a nearby chair, and started searching for his shoes.

"Ace-san... I just remembered..." Vivi started. "Where is Luffy-kun staying now Nojiko-san has to stay in the hospital?"

"I… hadn't even thought about that.." Ace stared at his little brother, who was trying tie his own toes together, failing miserably, and almost falling from the bed Zoro had been in only a couple of seconds ago. Where would the kid stay? He didn't really know anybody else who could take care of Luffy. Perhaps Robin, but the chance of her accepting the hyperactive boy was tiny. She needed her peace and quiet. The black-haired young man looked at Vivi, hoping she could come up with something, but the blue-haired girl looked as puzzled as he was.

"Luffy…" Ace said, waiting for Luffy to get his hair free from his sandal. "Luffy, do you perhaps have some friends where you can stay for a couple of weeks? Just until Nojiko-san's better again?"

Luffy took his time thinking and stayed quiet for almost a minute. "Well.. there's Usopp, but I don't think I can stay with him, since he lives with that rich girl and I don't really know her and stuff… And… I don't really have other friends." The boy grinned, like he was proud of the fact that he only had one friend. Zoro, who had finally found his shoes, looked at the raven-haired boy.

"Then… I guess... if Zoro-kun doesn't mind, at least… perhaps you can stay in the student hostel for now?" Ace mumbled, looking at Zoro from the corner of his eyes. Zoro stayed silent and continued tying his shoes. Being together in the same, small room with that bouncy boy for at least two weeks? No fucking way. Then again, he couldn't let the boy sleep outside, could he? The freshman sighed and rubbed his temples. He felt a headache coming up.

"Fine."

"Fine as in; he can stay with us?" Ace asked, just to be sure.

"Yes, he can stay with us, but if he's in any way annoying me or causing me headaches, I'm kicking him out." Zoro grumbled and stood. He looked around to see if there were any more belongings of him laying around, and when he couldn't find them, he went to the door of the room. "I'm going home."

However, before he could leave he felt two arms wrapping around his waist from the back. He tried to turn around but stopped when he heard Luffy's smothered voice between his shoulder blades.

"Thanks for letting me stay with you and Ace, Zoro! I promise I'll be quiet and I won't cause any headaches!" Luffy laughed. "You're actually much nicer than you look, you know that? You look really mean, but you really are a nice person!" He then let go and left the room before Zoro, leaving the green-haired teen behind with a shocked expression on his face. There you have it, all those years of looking grumpy and being 'the-silent-type' to build up his reputation as someone you really should stay away from, ruined by that boy within just a couple of seconds. He shook his head and wanted to leave the room again, when he noticed an older man wearing a long white doctors-coat standing in front of him.

"Roronoa-san, I assume?" He said. "You really should stay in bed. I understand you want to get home, but we would like to examine you some more, since we haven't found the reason of your fainting yet."

"Not gonna happen; I'm going home." Zoro grumbled.

"Zoro-kun, you really should listen to the doctor!" Ace started.

"There's nothing wrong with me! I'm going home, so don't try to stop me." Zoro interrupted him, walking past the doctor. Ace and Vivi quickly followed him, Vivi apologizing to the docter while passing him.

"Zoro-kun, are you sure you're feeling alright? They don't know why you fainted, you could have something serious." Vivi said, walking on the right side of Zoro, while Ace started walking on the left side.

"Look, it's nice of you guys that you worry so much about me, but I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me." Zoro answered, starting to get irritated. They then passed a room with an open door, giving view to a woman with lilac-coloured hair lying in bed, Nami and the ero-cook sitting by her bed.

"Ace-san, how's that mari-" Sanji started, when noticing Ace walking by, sounding actually concerned. He probably just asked because Ace had been worried about Zoro, but upon actually seeing the swordsman the concern vanished. "Oh, he's walking again."

"Yes, though he really shouldn't!" Ace said, more to Zoro than to Sanji.

"How's Nojiko-san?" Zoro asked, before someone could continue the conversation. He looked at the sleeping woman, her arm in plaster.

"She's fine." Nami answered softly. Her voice was hardly recognizable; it was sour and shivering, and her eyes were red, like she had been crying not so long ago. "She needs to rest, that's all. She'll be fine."

"That's good…" Zoro said, after a couple of seconds of silence. "When she wakes, tell her I hope she'll get better soon."

"I will, thanks." Nami turned away and stared at her older sister again. She held on to the lilac-haired woman's hand like she was trying to crush it. Next to her, Sanji softly placed his hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. Zoro just nodded and continued walking.

"Zoro-kun!" Vivi hissed. "Why are you so sure you're not sick? You could have something serious!"

"I've never been sick in my entire life, why would I be now?" Zoro muttered. He know that really wasn't an excuse, but this hospital just creeped him out. When he first entered the hospital everything seemed familiar. But after having that dream, and remembering it more clearly now, everything _was_ familiar, though he was sure he had never been here before. What the hell was going on?

"…so you shouldn't leave!" Vivi finished, grabbing Zoro's arm to make him stop walking. They already were in the entry-hall, where the green-haired teen had fainted that morning.

"What?" Zoro was snapped out of his thoughts when Vivi grabbed him. He hadn't heard a word of what she had said. "You said something?"

"Zoro-kun!" Vivi sighed deeply, throwing her arms in the air. "I give up! You're just too stubborn!"

"Good," was all that the freshman said before continuing his way out of the hospital.

"Ace-kun, stop him!" Vivi pleaded, sounding desperate.

"I thought you had given up?" Ace said with a smirk.

"Yes, but you haven't! Stop him, he's sick!"

"I really wanna try, but he will go back to the student hostel if he wants to, Vivi-chan. Besides, I don't wanna get in a fight with him, he's really strong."

"Fine, whatever, I don't care anymore. Just let him go home, I-I hope he get's really sick!" She stuttered, though her attempts at sounding like she actually meant it were rather futile.

"You know you don't mean that, Vivi-chan." Ace laughed. "You really are worried about him! Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him. And so will Luffy, I'm sure."

"But Ace-"

That was the last thing Zoro heard before leaving the hospital. The glass doors closed behind him and he was in the fresh air again, wich felt a lot colder than it had this morning. It was dark already, millions of stars shining above him in the cloudless sky. The freshman pulled his collor a bit higher, to shelter his neck from the cold wind, and slowly started walking home.

Today had been such a weird day. It all started with a nice Luffy-free morning and ended up with Zoro being kicked out of the gym, Nojiko falling down the stairs and going to the hospital, himself fainting in the hospital, having weird dreams and Luffy who had to stay with him and Ace for a couple of weeks. Why, oh why did he wake up this morning?

"Zoooorooooooooooo!" Luffy's voice made the green-haired teen snap out of his thoughts and as he turned around, he spotted the little brother, who seemed to be his old happy self again, ran towards him. He was being followed by another kid, who didn't seem much older, or younger, than Luffy, with curly black hair and an abnormally long nose.

"What?" Zoro asked as Luffy and the other boy stopped right before him.

"Nothing, just that I don't have a key to the room in the student hostel." The boy grinned widely, excited about the idea of sleeping in the same room with Zoro and his brother. "I just went home to pack my stuff!"

Zoro now noticed the brightly yellow backpack strapped on Luffy's back, wich was so stuffed that the seams were about to burst. His eyes then went to the boy who had followed Luffy. He was standing a few meters behind the raven-haired boy in a pose like he was ready to run away.

Luffy, who followed Zoro's eyes, turned around to pull the boy next to him. "This is Usopp, Zoro! He does to the same school as I go. Usopp, this is Zoro, my brother's roommate."

"N-Nice meeting you." Usopp said, straightening his back. "I am the great captain Usopp-sama! But you can call me the great captain Usopp-sama! That, or almighty Usopp-king-of-the-world. That will do too."

"Whatever." Zoro mumbled, ignoring whatever Usopp had said after his first three words. "C'mon, I'm going to the student hostel right now. You'll have to ask Ace-kun for a key later, though."

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"So why did _he_ follow us?" Zoro pointed towards Usopp, who was sitting on Ace's bed. When walking home, Zoro had been silent the whole time, while Luffy on the other hand had been talking the entire time. Zoro had been so busy concentrating on anything but Luffy's blabbering that he hadn't noticed Usopp following them to the student hostel. He had only noticed him because the curly-haired boy had bumped into him with his pointy nose, when Zoro stopped to open the door of his room.

"I invited him." Luffy said, who was jumping again on Zoro's bed. "He visits me a lot so now that I moved, he should know where I live, right?"

"No, since he's not going to visit you while you're here."

"Why not?"

"Remember that part where I said that I would kick you out if you would annoy me or cause me headaches?"

"Yes?"

"You two bouncing around in my room _is_ annoying and _will_ cause me a headache."

Luffy pouted. "We're not going to stay here! He'll pick me up and we'll go outside."

"Good, 'cause classes start tomorrow and I'll probably need to concentrate on my work from now on." Zoro pushed Luffy off of his bed and sat down on it himself. He looked at the large pile of books next to his bed. Right, he was suppose to look through them today. He hadn't really thought about that with everything that happened… Well, he really didn't feel like going through them now; it was far too late for that. Talking about late, why was that long-nosed kid still here?

"Your brother should be back soon, perhaps Pinocchio over there should go home." Zoro said, ignoring Usopp's indignant huffing.

"You're right, Usopp-kun should go home." Ace's voice came from the door. "It's already late and you and Luffy both start school tomorrow, so you'll need a goodnight rest. And I'm sure Kaya-san's worried about you."

"Ah, Kaya! I forgot to tell her where I was going! She must be really worried!" Usopp jumped up from Ace's bed and ran to the door. "I'll see you later, Luffy! You should come by the hospital tomorrow again, I'm gonna tell the story about how I rescued the seacat from the evil giant butterfly when I traveled around in Africa to the kids!"

"Ha! You saved a seacat from a giant butterfly? That's so awesome!" Luffy yelled with sparkling eyes.

"There are no such things as evil giant butterflies or seacats…" Zoro muttered.

"You really shouldn't try, Luffy believes everything Usopp-kun tells him." Ace said with a smirk. "Usopp-kun lies a lot, but he also comes up with the best stories. He tells those stories to the children at the hospital; Luffy often joins them."

"So even though he lies a lot, he's a nice guy?" Zoro said, staring blankly at Usopp, who was now standing on Ace's bed with his arms spread, telling one of his made-up stories to an almost drooling Luffy sitting on the floor in front of him.

"Yeah, but he really should go home." Ace said, adressing to Usopp. "You can finish your story later, Usopp-kun."

"Aw, but Ace, I wanna hear the ending now!" Luffy whined, putting up his puppy-dog eyes.

"That's okay, Luffy, I'll tell you the ending tomorrow at the hospital." Usopp added with a softer voice. "I'll probably have made up a better ending by then…"

"What's that?"

"N-Nothing, I didn't say anything!" The long-nosed boy stuttered, quickly jumping of the bed. "I have to go now, bye!" And with that, and ran to the door and left as quickly as his feet would allow him.

"So… Where's Luffy-kun gonna sleep?" Zoro asked, looking at Ace like he was hiding a third bed under his cowboyhat.

"I've got an extra mattress stuffed in my closet. Luffy can sleep on my bed and I'll sleep on the floor." Ace said while walking to his closet and opening the door. "Luffy, could you help me out here?"

"Sure!" The raven-haired boy jumped up and charged into the closet, almost knocking over Ace, and crashing into the back wall of the closet.

Zoro sighed and laid down on his bed, closing his eyes and trying to ignore Ace scolding at Luffy, and Luffy making whiny sounds. He tried to fall asleep, but with all the noise of Luffy trying to move the large mattress on his own and bumping into everything that he could bump into it was rather tricky.

"Luffy, let me just help you!"

"I got it, I got it!" WHAM, there went another rack of clothes.

"Luffy, would you just-"

"It's okay!" CRASH! Another lamp went falling down.

"For fuck's sake, can't you two just shut the hell up?" Zoro's eyes shot open at the sound of a lamp crashing into the floor. "Some people are trying to sleep here."

"Ah, we're sorry, Zoro-kun, but Luffy just won't let me help!"

"Then set him on fire or something, I don't care; just shut up."

"Waah, you're not really gonna set me on fire, are you, Ace?"

"Of course not, Luffy! Zoro-kun's just teasing! Now give me the mattress."

"No, no, I got it, really!"

After a few more crashes and broken belongings of both Ace and Zoro, the mattress was finally laying next to Ace's bed. Soon Ace also managed to get an extra blanket and pillow from somewhere in his closet and the extra bed was ready to be used.

"Luffy, get changed into your pajamas. You'll have to get up early tomorrow since you're living further from school now." Ace said, going trough Luffy's backpack to find his pajamas. After searching for several minutes, he looked up. "Luffy, did you bring your pajamas…?"

"Erhm… No."

"Why not?"

"They didn't fit anymore."

"Then couldn't you have left some of your comic books at home?"

"Maybe… No… Well, yes, I probably could have done that, but I didn't really want to."

Ace sighed. "Fine, you can sleep in one of my t-shirts. You're skinny enough, you could probably use it as a dress anyway." He went back into his closet once more and threw one of his black t-shirts at Luffy. "Now get changed."

"Okay, thanks Ace!" Luffy chirped, while taking of his hoodie and beginning to unbutton his pants.

"What the…" Zoro stared at the boy for just a second, before throwing his pillow at him, hitting Luffy in the head. "Not in here, you idiot!"

"He! Why not?" The highschoolstudent asked.

"You just don't! Get in the bathroom, or the closet or something. Don't take of your clothes in front of people!" Zoro grumbled, getting up to take his pillow back.

"Okay… You're really weird, Zoro!" Luffy laughed when Zoro, who just picked up his pillow, threw the fluffy thing at the boy again. He then ran into Ace's closet and continued unbuttoning his pants again.

"WITH THE DOOR CLOSED, DAMNIT!" The green-haired teen closed the closetdoor with a _slam!_ and went back to his bed.

"Sorry about that, Zoro-kun." Ace laughed. "Luffy doesn't really care what people think."

"Yeah, I noticed that." Zoro sighed. "Can't you teach him some manners or something?"

"I tried, but it's hard with someone who has the power of concentration at the level of a breadstick." Ace answered, shaking his head. "And it's not like I can send him to puppy training or something…"

"Have you tried?"

"…"

"Well, have you?"

"Zoro-kun, you can't expect me to send my little brother to puppy training!"

"Well, if it's your last resort… it might actually work with him…"

"Zoro-kun!"

"Yeah yeah, I'll stop." Zoro grinned. "I'm gonna change too, I'm tired." He grabbed his own pyjamas, a normal black t-shirt and shorts, and left the room.

"I bet, after what happened today…"

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_That's it for now! Though I wanted to write so much more in this chapter… but it would become too long, and I haven't posted in a while, so it's okay. I hope you all had a nice Easter, I know I did Be prepared for chapter six sometime-not-very-soon (yeah sorry, but school is totally killing me at the moment…)_

_And once again, thanks so much for beta-reading, **Digitaldreamer**! Have a virtual easter-egg :) !_

_Please review and make Blok the happiest person alive? She needs it with all the crappy grades she's been getting XD_


	6. Chapter 6

**Multicolour Words  
Chapter 6  
by GunslingerBlok**

_Guess what? My computer crashed and I lost everything I had! Bye bye one hundred episodes of One Piece, bye bye all the lovely One Piece doujinshi I had downloaded and, yes, bye bye chapter 6 of MW! I had to rewrite everything I had, which was about... half the chapter? So that sucked. But I still hope you guys will enjoy this chapter, even though it's not half as good as I had it before my PC crashed..._

_**Disclaimer:** One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda._

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Weeks had passed since Luffy had moved in with Zoro and Ace. Nojiko was slowly getting better, though it was taking longer than it should have. School and University had started, keeping everyone busy, yet Ace still found the time to hang out with Sanji, leaving Luffy to Zoro. The green-haired teen was slowly, very slowly, getting used to having Luffy around, and actually wasn't bothered by him if he didn't need to concentrate on something.

Nami didn't spend much time at the University. She only followed the classes she thought where worth following, spending all her free time in the hospital with Nojiko. Vivi seemed rather out-of-place without Nami hanging around her, so she spent all her free time with Kohza. To Zoro's relief he didn't see the Blonde Princess much either, as he was always hanging around with Ace after school. The only time he saw the cook was at breakfast, which usually led to a fight, interrupted by either Ace or Vivi.

So things where going well. University wasn't all too hard, Luffy wasn't too annoying, and Zoro still had enough free time to practice with his katana. That was when Luffy was hanging around with Usopp, because training with Luffy in the same room just wouldn't do. The boy would either try grasping one of Zoro's swords to make the famous 'SWOOSH!' sound with it or dancing around the freshman so he couldn't concentrate.

The swordsman hadn't fainted again either, and he had practically abandoned the dream from his head. He was too busy with other things to think about it anyway...

It was a normal Wednesday and late in the evening. It must've been almost midnight when Zoro left the library, where he had been all day. He had to do a project for school, and had spent the last three days locked up in the library, with that weird librarian hanging around him, asking questions with her creepy smirk stuck on her face. Zoro didn't like her, by far.

Too tired to even stand on his feet, Zoro decided to skip dinner, though he hadn't had anything since lunch, and head straight to bed. When he entered the room however, he noticed something was off. He turned on the light and saw Ace sleeping soundly in his own bed and Luffy sleeping... in Zoro's bed.

Right, how could he forget? Ace had burned down the spare bed the day before, after falling asleep with a burning match in his hands. Again. Zoro kicked off his shoes with a deep sigh and thought about what to do. He couldn't wake up Luffy. Well, technically he could, but with the boy finally being silent and calm for more than five seconds, he just couldn't wake him.

The freshman looked around, searching for anything that could serve as a bed, but only found the half burned down pillow from Luffy's spare bed. He closed his eyes for a moment, grumbling something unintelligible, picked up the pillow and threw it down again against the wall next to his bed. He sat down on the pillow, leaned back against the wall and glared at Luffy for a moment, who was warmly cuddled up in _his_ sheets. After throwing a shoe at the lightbutton next to the door, to turn it off, Zoro closed his eyes and tries to get as comfortable as possible against the hard wall.

"If you want, you can sleep in my bed. I can sleep somewhere else." Ace's whispers went trough the room. "After all, I was the one who burned down Luffy's bed."

"Didn't think you where still awake." Was Zoro's response.

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep. There's something I've been wondering…"

"Aha… Well, I have an early morning tomorrow, so goodnight." Zoro whispered. He didn't feel like listening to Ace's problems all night. Besides, he really did have to get up early tomorrow.

"Before you go to sleep, can I ask you one thing?"

"What?"

"Have you been… having nightmares lately?" Ace hesitated for a moment. "Sometimes you talk in your sleep."

"Not that I know of, but why would you care?"

"I'm just worried. You've been screaming things at night, telling someone to stop, something about… needles and experiments. And it's like you're having the same dream every night, since you always scream the same things."

Zoro thought about it for a moment. Nothing Ace told sound familiar, but he never really remembered any of his dreams or nightmares, so it could be very well possible he _did_ have nightmares. "I don't know. I don't remember any of my dreams, so it's possible I've been having nightmares and stuff. Don't know."

"Okay… Well, if there's something you wanna talk about…" Ace muttered.

"Yeah yeah, I know." Zoro cut him off. He didn't really wanna go that mushy way.

"Goodnight, Zoro-kun."

"'Night."

It stayed silent for a couple of minutes. The only sounds came from Luffy, who was snoring softly, and Zoro, who just couldn't find a comfortable way of sitting against the hard wall. He sighed deeply and thought about what Ace had said. The talking about experiments made him remind the dream he had when he fainted. Didn't the kid say something like 'what are they gonna do to us today'? He grunted and tried to ignore it, to fall asleep, but several minutes later, the thoughts still circled trough his head.

"Ace-san?" Immediately after saying that, Zoro mentally smacked himself in the head. Why would he even tell the pyromaniac about the dream he had? Why would he care?

"Something the matter, Zoro-kun?" Ace responded, more awake than he had been minutes ago. "Wanna tell me something?"

Zoro hesitated. "You know, the day I fainted at the hospital?" He waited for a response from his roommate, and got a soft 'hm-hm' in return before continuing. "When I fainted I had this… dream. It was weird. And… Well… Ah, nevermind, you're probably not interested anyway, sorry to bother you."

"No, no, wait Zoro-kun!" Ace's voice sounded almost eager, like he had waited for Zoro to speak again. "I mean… If it makes you feel better, you can talk to me about that dream."

Zoro sighed again. He really wasn't good at this, but now the dream had returned in his memory, he knew he wouldn't get a good rest until he told it to someone. "It wasn't really like a dream… More like a memory, one that I can't remember myself." He went silent again.

"Go on?" Ace's voice sounded after a couple of seconds.

"Well… It was about me, only… When I was a lot younger. I think I was eight or something. Anyway, I was running through this building with this kid, I think it was a girl."

"A girl?"

"I think so, yeah. We where running, and after a while we got tired and sat down against the wall. She asked me if 'they' were gonna do something to us today, that she had heard someone talk about it. I told her everything was gonna be alright and that we were going to hide."

"Do you remember the girl, what she looked like?"

"Not at all. I only remember her hand, since I was holding it rather tightly." That was weird. Why would he remember only her hand, and not her face or something? He remember the length of the nails, the soft skin, the size of the hand and the tiny scar on the left side of the back of her hand. He remember it was her left hand. But why?

"And you don't remember anything else?"

"Nah. We ran off after that and then Luffy-kun woke me up."

"That's really weird." Ace responded. Zoro let out a soft 'heh' and grunted.

"Yeah, I kinda figured that one out myself."

"Ah, I'm sorry Zoro-kun, I wish I could help you, but I really don't know how the explain this."

"I know, and I wasn't really expecting any help…" The swordsman looked at Luffy again, who was now laying upside down, his feet on his pillow, tangled up in the sheets. "I'm going to sleep, early morning tomorrow."

"Yeah, sure. Goodnight Zoro-kun."

"'Night Ace-san. And… Thanks."

"Anytime."

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Softly rocking the wooden chair he was sitting in, Ace stared at the wall in front of him. A girl, who had been that girl? He knew there had been girls, but none of them hung out with Zoro at the time. Getting frustrated he let out a soft groan, placing his forehead on the cold table in front of him.

"You okay?" Sanji's soft voice sounded, barely inches away from the pyromaniac's ear. The student looked up and slowly shook his head.

"I'm worried." Ace sighed and waited for Sanji to sit down in front of him. He looked around the room for a while. The blonde had a much nicer room than any of the other students. Probably one of the privileges as the school's cook.

First of all, the room was a lot larger, probably twice as large as a normal room. The cook didn't have a roommate, so there was room enough for a large double bed, a huge wooden closet, and even a personal kitchen, with oven, microwave, sink and everything attached. They where sitting in the middle of the room, on comfortable wooden chairs by a lovely antique wooden table. Ace had always enjoyed staying in this room. It wasn't loud and busy, but silent and peaceful. He loved his little brother, but Luffy could take up a lot of your energy by just being around. The student certainly had noticed this in the past few weeks. He honestly didn't know how Zoro could keep up with the boy. A deep sigh escaped his lips.

"I'm not sure what you're so worried about, but don't think about it for a moment." Sanji's voice made Ace snap out of his thoughts. "Drink up your tea, it's getting cold."

"Thanks Sanji-kun." Ace took a sip of his tea, staring at the blonde for a moment. "I wish I can tell you, Sanji-kun, but it's all a little complicated. It has a lot to do with Luffy's past, which he doesn't even remember himself."

"I know, I know." Sanji sighed. "I just hate to see you like this." He leaned forward and reached to softly touch Ace's hand, caressing the skin. Ace returned this gesture with a loving, but sad, smile.

"I'll tell you someday, when it's safe."

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"No."

"Aw, but Zoroooo…"

"I said no."

"Why not?"

"Because I need to focus on my work and I'm not a goddamn _horse_!"

Luffy pouted. "Fine."

The two of them where staying in Ace and Zoro's room. It was a Saturday, so they were free, and because it was raining outside, Usopp didn't come to pick Luffy up to play outside together. Because of that, Luffy was bored. And Zoro had to suffer for it.

"I understand you're bored, Luffy-kun, but can't you bother someone else?" Zoro grunted.

"Nah, Vivi's with Kohza, Ace is with Sanji en Nami's with Nojiko." Luffy answered. "And don't call me that!"

"Don't call you what? It's your name." Zoro said.

"Call me Luffy."

"I do."

"Without the whole kun-stuff."

The freshman looked at the boy for a moment, staring at him, before returning to his work. "Fine."

Luffy smiled, and also returned to what he was doing: jumping on Ace's bed, the bed making the most annoying squeaking sound every time the raven-haired boy landed on it. After another few minutes of the high school boy bouncing on the bed, Zoro grabbed the pillow of his own bed, threw it to Luffy and hit him in the face with it. The boy stumbled off the bed, hitting the floor hard.

"Zoro! That wasn't very nice!" Luffy whined, throwing back the pillow.

Zoro catched the pillow, threw it on his bed again and glared at Luffy. "Then stop the bouncing, it annoys me. Seriously, go annoy someone else!"

"Fine! I'll go to Usopp, I'm staying at his and Kaya's house anyway tonight." Luffy stuck out his tongue at Zoro, before taking his already packed bag and leaving the room. "See you tomorrow!"

"Yeah yeah…" Zoro mumbled. At that moment, the dark sky was streaked with lightning, the rain starting to pour down even harder. Luffy froze in the door frame.

"Erhm… Zoro?" He started. Zoro sighed deeply.

"Yeah yeah, you can take my raincoat. It's in the closet…"

"Thanks, Zoro!"

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Later that evening Ace returned to the room. He was so caught up in his thoughts, that he hardly noticed Zoro greeting him and telling him Luffy had already left. The black-haired man sat down on his bed, staring at the wall in front of him and saying nothing. It was not until several minutes and a couple of 'OI!'s later that he noticed he wasn't alone in the room.

"Oi! Did I finally catch your attention?" Zoro said, when Ace turned his head to face the green-haired man.

"Ah, I'm sorry, Zoro-kun." Ace answered sheepishly. "I was caught up in my thoughts."

"Yeah, I kinda noticed that. Are you okay?" Zoro asked.

"Fine, fine." Ace said. "Where's Luffy?"

"He already left, something about sleeping at Usopp's house." Zoro mumbled, turning to his homework again. He had been working on this stupid project all freaking' day and it wasn't even halfway finished yet.

"Are _you_ okay?" Ace asked.

"Yeah fine, it's just this stupid project." Zoro sighed. "I've been working on it non-stop all day."

"Perhaps you should take a walk, clear your mind." The black-haired man suggested. "Working non-stop will drive a normal man nuts."

"Good thing I'm no normal man, then." Zoro smirked. "But perhaps you're right. I'm going out for a bit." He stood, took his coat from his bed and went to the door.

"Try not to get lost this time." Ace smiled. Zoro muttered something and left, closing the door behind him with a little more power than he had intended to.

The freshman started wandering trough the halls of the student hostel. He knew his way to the cafeteria, his room and to the front doors of the building, already. He even knew the way to Nami and Vivi's room, since he was often send there to catch Luffy and bring him back to the room, whenever he was endlessly tormenting the girls with his hyperactivity again. But that was about it, so getting lost was still something the freshman would do every once in a while.

Zoro sighed deeply, his feet automatically leading him to the front doors of the student hostel. So Luffy wanted him to call him just… Luffy. No honorific or whatever. Did the boy really think he and Zoro were good friends? Well, that was something that amused the freshman. As far as he knew, he hadn't really been nice to the boy or anything. True, he hadn't murdered him yet, which was exactly what the swordsman wanted to do every time Luffy… well… was awake, actually.

After a couple of minutes walking Zoro reached the front doors of the student hostel. Before leaving the building, he first checked if he indeed was wearing his shoes (which had become a habit every since that dreadful night he went to the shop), and then slowly pushed the doors open.

The raining had finally stopped, and the sky cleared up a bit, when he entered the courtyard of the university. The freshman looked up at the moon, which was shining brightly above him. It was a full moon tonight. Continuing his walking, and never taking his eyes of the moon, Zoro suddenly bumped it to someone.

"Ouch, hey!" He looked up to see who he had bumped into, and saw it was the very same man he had bumped into a long, long time ago. The tall man readjusted his long black trench coat and pulled up his collar a little higher, covering the bottom part of his face again. The same black hat was firmly put on his head again, shadowing his eyes. The man nodded and kept walking towards the front doors of the student hostel.

Zoro looked as the man entered the student hostel. When he couldn't see him any more, he hesitated. "Too fucking suspicious." The swordsman mumbled, and then followed the man, entering the student hostel again.

Inside the building, he looked around, and saw the man walking up the stairs. As silently as he possibly could, Zoro followed, intending to follow the man trough the entire building, to see where he was going. He followed the man for a couple of minutes before noticing the man was walking the way that would lead to his room.

And indeed, the man stopped right in front of room 96A. He looked around, didn't notice Zoro (who was being _very_ stealthy in the shadows), and knocked on the door.

"Zoro-kun, is that you? I thought you where going on-" Before finishing his sentence, Ace opened the door and stared at the large man in front of him. "Oh, it's you again…"

"The boss is getting impatient." The man had a very deep and low voice. "We need to talk."

"Of course, come inside." Ace stepped aside, so the man could enter the room. He then looked around quickly, before closing the door to room 96A.

"What the fuck?" Zoro muttered to himself. He went to the door of room 96A and put his ear against cold wood, trying to hear what Ace and the man were talking about. Ace's voice was too soft though, so he could only hear the man's voice.

"Mister Ace, I am sure you are fully aware of the power my boss has." There was a short silence. "Good. Then you also know what we can do to you and your… friends you call them? What we can do to them if you don't bring the boy to us."

"Mr. 1, please, you can't possibly mean-" Ace had raised his voice and was sounding like he was panicking. What was that about?

"Mister Ace, you know my boss' conditions. Bring the boy, or you will have to see your friends get hurt, or even die, one by one. I am sure you already know Miss Nojiko's accident wasn't an… accident." Another silence, longer this time. "I'll be leaving now then. Have a nice evening."

"Crap!" Zoro whispered, before he ducked into the shadows again, right at the moment the door to room 96A opened. The tall man stepped outside the room, pulled his collar up higher again and left. The door closed behind him.

Holding his breath, Zoro watched the man pass him and was lucky enough he didn't see the freshman sitting in the shadows. When the man went down the stairs, and was outside Zoro's field of vision, he dared to breath again. What the _fuck_ was that all about? This was the second time _he_ knew about the man visiting Ace, but who knew how many times the two had met? The boy, they were talking about the boy. Probably Luffy, Zoro didn't know any other boy Ace cared about. Of course, that didn't say anything, since Zoro didn't know the same people Ace did. But, to make his train of thoughts easier, the freshman assumed it was Luffy. Now, what would this 'boss' guy want with Luffy? And who was this 'boss' anyway?

Zoro sighed, closing his eyes tightly as the kept thinking. He could be on to something now. There had been something fishy about this university from the fucking start. At least he knew the tall guy's name now, Mr. 1. Interesting name, that was for sure. So Mr. 1 worked for 'boss', who had interest in Luffy. Mr. 1 kept visiting Ace, who tried to protect Luffy, of course.

Mr. 1 had looked pretty tough, so it was only logic Ace didn't attack him. Ace was too nice for that anyway. But why would Mr. 1 and 'boss' keep looking for Luffy, if the damn kid was bouncing around the entire town on a daily base? Shit, this didn't make sense at all. Zoro sighed again, stood and decided to go for that walk anyway. Ace probably needed some time alone, and Zoro wasn't sure if he could kept silent about what he just witnessed.

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Later, much later that night, it was probably around 3 AM, Zoro opened the door to room 96A again. He entered silently, knowing Ace would most likely already be asleep. He looked at his roommate and saw the man wasn't asleep.

"That's a long walk you took, Zoro-kun." He smiled. Zoro hit the light switch before closing the door.

"Hn, I kinda needed it, I guess." Zoro muttered. He walked to his bed and threw his coat next to it. "Why aren't you asleep yet?"

"Couldn't sleep." Ace responded. "There's been a lot on my mind lately…"

The freshman didn't respond. He just took of his shoes and his t-shirt and went straight to bed. That long walk hadn't really helped him either way. He was still thinking about the project he had to finish, but now he was also thinking about Mr. 1, 'boss', Ace and Luffy.

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"Zo-chan.." The child looked at the boy. "Zo-chan, talk to me, please."

_The green-haired boy just turned around on his bed, so he could face the child, eyes closed and hands wrapped around himself. He tried to say something, but his voice wouldn't work._

"_They really did hurt you this time, didn't they?" The child reached for one of the boy's hands and held it tightly. Zoro shook his head._

"_Didn't… hurt…" He managed to say. His voice was poor and hardly intelligible. "It's… okay, really…"_

"_No, it isn't, Zo-chan."The child sniffed, like it was holding down tears. "I-it's okay to cry, i-if you want to." Another sniff. Zoro looked at the kid and smiled. He reached out with the hand the child wasn't holding, and softly touched the child's face, to wipe away an escaped tear._

_  
"Don't smile l-like that." The child said. "You don't have to act like the grown-ups all the time, y-you know! You can cry!"_

"_Then why… are _you_ holding… back your tears so… forcefully." Zoro said. "Come here." He moved, making some space on the bed for the child. The child quickly wiped away another upcoming tear and climbed on the bed. He snuggled against Zoro, while the older boy wrapped his arms around him._

"_It's d-different if I cry…" The child muttered into Zoro's chest._

"_And why… would that be?" Zoro whispered. He was slowly getting back his voice._

"_B-because, I'm not hurt!"_

"_Yes, you are… Perhaps not… physically…" Zoro took a deep breath. Talking was taking a lot of energy from him. "But seeing me… like this… that hurts you, right…?" The child sniffed once more, before letting his tears run free._

"_Of course it hurts m-me, Zo-ch-chan." He clenched the plain white shirt Zoro was wearing and tried to snuggle even closer to the boy._

"_So we can both cry…"_

"_But y-you aren't crying."_

"_I've cried enough for the rest of my life already." Zoro sighed. He softly wiped away a tear from the child's cheek again and smiled awkwardly._

_Before the child could reply to that, a knock sounded on the door._

_  
"Zoro-kun?" The door opened and a tall, black-haired and beautiful woman entered the room. She was wearing a long white lab-coat and had a sad, but somehow comforting smile on her face. "Zoro-kun, you've had your rest. I'm sorry, but the experiments must continue."_

"_Y-yeah, sure." Zoro tried to get up, but as soon as he did that, a shock of pain went trough his body. He lay down again. "Sorry, Robin-san, but I don't… think I… can."_

_The woman sighed. "I know it hurts, Zoro-kun, but we don't have much time." She walked to the bed. "Let me help you."_

"_NO!" The child suddenly threw himself almost on top of Zoro, looking at Robin with an angry and pleading look on the face. "D-don't take him away! He's hurt already, c-can't you see that?" Tears came welling up again._

"_Please get off of him, child." Robin sighed. "I know it makes you feel sad when seeing him like this, but I can't do anything about it. Not right now at least." She looked at Zoro, who was looking like he was in pain. "Besides, you're only hurting him like this."_

"_W-what?" The child quickly got off Zoro. "Waaah, Zo-chan, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't know."_

"_I-it's okay." The green-haired boy tried to sit up again. "I'm gonna go now, so I'll see you later, oke?"  
_

"_B-but, Zo-chan!" The child grabbed his arm, as gentle as possible. "I don't want you to get hurt again…"_

"_It's okay, really!" Zoro tried to smile, but only managed to show a weird kind of smirk. "Wait for me here, okay?" And before the child could say anything, Robin had scooped up Zoro, since he could hardly move himself, and left the room._

_  
"Zo-chan…" _

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What followed was too unclear to be sure of. All Zoro knew was that he was feeling pain, a lot of pain, pumping trough his body like his blood was carrying it. He knew he was screaming, but couldn't hear anything. Not his own voice, or the sounds around him. He could feel though and what he felt were two hands holding his shoulders. Someone was trying to wake him up.

But he didn't wake up. It was like Zoro was caught in a weird state between dreaming, sleeping and being awake. He was awake enough to know he wasn't sleeping anymore, but not awake enough yet to stop dreaming. He could still vaguely hear the child's voice, even feel the woman's hands around his body when she scooped him up. But more than anything; he could feel the horrible pain.

This feeling went on for what felt like forever. The pain was getting worse and worse and then… suddenly stopped. The freshman's eyes shot open. He sat up, panting heavily and closed his eyes again for a moment in an attempt to make his headache go away. His hearing hadn't returned fully yet, but he could hear someone's voice. Someone that was panicking, it seemed.

Zoro looked around, and noticed his vision was blurry. He could see someone sitting next to him, someone looking like… Luffy? No, it wasn't the kid, it couldn't be since he was staying somewhere else. Ace? He closed his eyes again and kept them closed for almost a minute. When he re-opened his eyes, the blurriness was gone, and he could see it was indeed Ace sitting next to him.

"Zoro-kun? Can you hear me?" Ace's voice was soft, but he could hear it. "Zoro-kun!"

"I… I can hear you." Zoro muttered.

"Thank God! Are you alright, Zoro-kun? What happened?"

"Please, keep your voice down… I'm not feeling all too well, Ace-san…"

"I'm sorry, but you really scared me." Ace whispered. "You suddenly started screaming, like you were in pain, and when I tried to wake up, you wouldn't! It lasted for at least half an hour."

"H-half an hour?" Zoro looked at Ace. That was… shorter than it had felt. He let out a deep sigh when he noticed there were more people in the room. He looked past Ace and saw Vivi standing against the wall, her hands before her mouth, eyes full of tears. She looked shock. The Blonde Princess was standing next to her, one arm around Vivi for comfort. Zoro reckoned he only came to comfort his precious 'Vivi-chwaaan'. He didn't even look the least bit worried. In fact, he looked like he was enjoying this.

"W-what's going on…" The green-haired man softly said to Ace.

"Everybody could hear you screaming, y'know." Ace softly answered. "Vivi-chan came rushing in as soon as she noticed something was wrong. Sanji-kun quickly followed after that, only he was angry because he couldn't sleep. He already had to kick out some of the other curious students. I think someone is getting the nurse right now."

Zoro kept silent. What the _fuck_ was going on? Half an hour? It had felt like at least a couple of hours. He must've really scared Ace this night. Good thing Luffy wasn't there, he would've freaked out.

"I'm sorry I made you worry, Ace-san." Zoro sighed. "I'm feeling better now, I think I'm going back to sleep now."

"W-wait! Perhaps you should have the nurse take a quick look at you." Ace said. "Just to be sure."

"I'm fine, really." Zoro answered. "Just need some sleep…"

"Well, too late, since I'm already here." A tall woman was standing in the door frame. She was thin and had large, curly dark blue hair. When she entered the room, she walked like a model, her white lab-coat flapping around hour-glass frame.

"Aaah, Nurse Doublefinger!" Sanji almost immediately jumped forward, to grab the woman's hand and kiss it. "It's been so long since I have witnessed your amazing beauty, too long for my heart to accept! Please, why won't you come to my room every once in a while for a delicious cup of tea?" He kissed her hand again and then made the mistake to look around, for he then saw the look on Ace's face. The cook quickly let go of Nurse Doublefinger's hand and nodded towards Zoro. "Asshole's over there."

Zoro, completely confused by Sanji's behaviour (he had seen Sanji act like this around women before, but he never saw him stop so abruptly), didn't even hear the insult. All he could do was stare at the white lab-coat of the nurse.

"N-no, really, I'm okay." The freshman muttered, staring at the coat. "I don't need any nurse."

"Zoro-kun, please, we're all really worried about you." Ace said. "Just let the nurse have a quick look at you. Do it for me." Before Zoro could answer, he heard the door slam closed. He looked up to see Sanji missing and Vivi looking kind of confused at the door.

"What's… wrong with him…?" She asked softly. Ace sighed.

"I'll go talk to him tomorrow."

"And I'll go to the nurse tomorrow." Zoro said. "I really just want to sleep now, Ace-san. I'm sorry you had to wake up for this, nurse."

"That's alright, as long as promise to visit me sometime tomorrow." She said with a wink. After she had left, Vivi said goodnight too. She looked really worried, but was somewhat comforted by the idea that Zoro would visit the nurse tomorrow.

When everyone was gone, and Ace had returned to his own bed, it was silence for a while. Zoro lay down again and closed his eyes.

"You had a nightmare again, hadn't you…" Ace whispered.

"Yeah, I had… It was… weird." Zoro answered.

"You were calling Robin-san's name."

"She was in my dream too, yeah."

"What… happened?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow, okay? I'm really tired now and I have a huge headache."

"Of course. Good night, Zoro-kun."

"'Night."

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D: Aww, I suck at writing fluff… but I still hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Sorry it took me so long, and sorry it's so short, even after my computer was fixed again. Stuff like new video games, school and summer kept me busy. Anyway, leave me some lovely reviews 'cause a happy Blok still is a writing Blok!

Ah, and I don't know when I'll post chapter 7 since my computer crashed. AGAIN. It's an old PC, so there's nothing I can do about it. I can only hope my dad can fix it again. I'm really sorry for all this guys ;-;!

And once more thanks to Digitaldreamer for betareading! –throws around hearts-


	7. Chapter 7

**Multicolour Words  
Chapter 7  
By Gunslinger Blok**

_After I posted chapter 6, my computer managed to crash four times within three days! I didn't even know a computer could crash that many times! The first three times, my computer just broke down or something and I had to reinstall Windows XP over and over again. The fourth time it broke down too, and when I wanted to start it again to reinstall, it wouldn't! Arg, I hate computers! Poor Sasuke-kun III (as I called it) wouldn't work for another two weeks, before my brother could fix it (the video card broke down). Now I finally have everything installed again. I really hope Sasuke-kun III will keep it up for a while now TT From now on I'll take TreeStar's advice, and save all my stories to my USB-stick. _

I wanna thank everybody so much for their reviews. Already over 50 reviews, I never expected that when I first began writing this story! And all the reviews are so positive, you guys have no idea how incredibly happy I am right now! I wanna apologize for being so slow with posting chapters, but because I didn't pass the year (yeah, my grades were worse that I thought), I thought I'd cheer myself up by buying a Playstation 2 with Kingdom Hearts. I was stuck to the thing for five days in a row and finished the game already. So I haven't been really in the mood for anything else. I do have a new obsession now, lol! 

About the story; I know most characters have only showed one side until now. Luffy's happy and hyper, Zoro's annoyed, Ace's worried, Sanji's either pissed or jealous. But that's gonna change, I promise! I'm planning to let everybody, especially Luffy, experience a lot of different emotions and sides, to make the story a bit more interesting. However, I can't do that until I'm a bit further in the story, so please have some patience, thank you! 

**Disclaimer:** Eiichiro Oda owns One Piece. And me D: 

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The rest of the night, Zoro hardly slept at all. Every now and then he would fall asleep, thinking it would be a peaceful and dreamless sleep, but every time he would wake up drenched in sweat, panting heavily with the voice of that child, that girl, in the back of his mind. And every time he had been asleep for only a couple of minutes.

Between the moment Ace had woken him up and the moment the first beams of light coming from the sun were entering their room, Zoro had fallen asleep and woken up like that at least ten times. He knew the rest of the day would be a struggle to get through.

Before Ace woke up, the freshman got out of bed, grabbed some clean clothes and a towel and left for the bathroom to take a long and, hopefully, refreshing shower. He _really_ needed a cup of coffee right now. And some aspirin, though he wasn't sure coffee and aspirin worked well together.

When he got back from his shower, which had somehow exhausted him even more, he found Ace jumping around in front of the window, desperately trying to put out the curtains. For they were on fire. Again. Zoro decided to ignore this. He was getting pretty used to all the fires.

"Ah, Zoro-kun, good morning." Ace managed to say while trying to take the curtains down to throw them in the sink. "How are –aah hot hot hot- are you feeling today?"

"Horrible." Zoro responded. "Need help with that?"

"Nah, I'll be fine." Ace answered, grinning widely. "I hope."

"Kay, good luck." And ignoring Ace's cries of pain, Zoro left the room. He faintly heard his roommate yell 'visit the nurse!' behind him.

Right the nurse. He _did_ promise to visit her, but he really didn't feel comfortable around her. That white labcoat reminded him of his dreams. The nurse herself was rather weird too. Why would he go anyway? He had never been to a nurse before and though he was still feeling like crap, the nurse wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Troubled by the promise he made to Ace, and Vivi, he left for the cafeteria. It was a long weekend, four days left to be precise, and most students had gone home to their families. Zoro, who didn't really have a family to go home too, stayed at school. He wasn't all alone though; Ace and Luffy were staying too, obviously, and even the love cook and Vivi had nowhere else to go this weekend. Nami he hardly saw anyway, since Nojiko was still in the hospital.

Softly mumbling to himself, he entered the cafeteria, ready to go on a quest for a nice cup of coffee. The first thing he noticed when entering the cafeteria, was that it was almost empty. There were only a couple of students, which was quite a relief. Zoro never enjoyed the chaos of the cafeteria.

The second thing he noticed was that all those students were staring at him. Zoro sighed. Of course, they must've heard him scream too. Ignoring the eyes following him, the freshman went to the kitchen. His favorite blonde princess was waiting for him.

"Here." Without any insults or bad gestures, Sanji put down a cup of coffee on the table. Zoro didn't say anything but just nodded. After that, Sanji took of his apron and left the kitchen. His shift was over, so he would probably be hunting down his precious Vivi-chwaaan for the rest of the day. Zoro took the cup of coffee and left to sit down in the farthest corner of the cafeteria. The cook did have his good sides every now and then.

Zoro could still feel the students staring at him, but ignored it, like he did with most things that bothered him. Most of the time it worked perfectly fine. There were a few exceptions, though.

"Zooooroooooooo!" Oh God, where did that awfully familiar voice came from? Zoro, who had closed his eyes to give them some rest, opened one eye a bit and looked around. It wasn't long before he noticed the red flash of Luffy flying towards him.

Before the freshman could either jump up or dive out of the way, Luffy had jumped on top of him, making both the chair and the two men fall backwards. An incredible pain shot through Zoro's head as it hit the floor, the weight of Luffy on top of him making it even more painful.

"_Crapfuck_, Luffy what the fuck-"

"Ha, sorry Zoro, I didn't know I was running that fast!" The boy laughed, while sitting up straight on Zoro's chest.

"Running fast or not, you should _not_ just jump on top of other people!" Zoro muttered. "Now get the hell off me, you're heavy!"

"I'm not _that_ heavy. Ace always says it's a wonder how I can keep so skinny when eating so much." Luffy muttered, standing up. He offered Zoro a hand to help him up, which the green-haired teen gratefully accepted.

"What are you doing here anyway, I thought you were at Usopp-kun's house." Zoro took the chair and tried to place it near the table again, when he noticed one of the paws was broken. Letting go of the chair, which fell down right away, he turned to Luffy again.

"Yeah, but there's some kind of cockroach problem, so I was kicked out."

"Luffy, did _you_ bring in the cockroach?"

"Of course not! Though I did bring Herci, my Hercules beetle, but I somehow lost it…"

Zoro sighed deeply. This boy really was… something. The freshman reached for the cup of coffee he had left on the table and took another sip.

"Ohyeah, do you know where Ace is?" Luffy asked. "He isn't in the room."

"Probably outside then. He's been hanging around in the Gardens a lot on free days." Zoro answered. The 'Gardens' was a large amount of space behind the university, something Zoro found out on accident when he couldn't find the bike shed. There was only one way going in and out, since the place was surrounded by high walls, covered with ivy. Inside those walls were smaller gardens filled with flowers, spices, plants that were probably illegal and lots of weeds. Small paths criss-crossed trough the Gardens, most of them leading you to the impressive fountain in the middle. All that together made the Gardens a wonderful place to go when you wanted to be either alone, or with a loved one. Of when you're heaving a headache; the scents of some of the plants and flowers somehow made headaches disappear.

"Ah, right, the Gardens! Ace once told be about that…" Luffy closed his eyes, as if he were trying to reach a long forgotten memory. "Something about that fountain… Ohyeah! He told me that if I ever find someone that I love, I have to take that person to the fountain and congrats!"

"That's _confess_, you idiot." Zoro said. "And I find it hard to believe that Ace believes that you will actually find someone to confess to. Now let's go find your brother." Drinking the last of his coffee, the freshman left the cup on the table and headed to the exit of the cafeteria. Luffy followed.

"Why's that? There's tons of people that I like and love!" Luffy chirped. "I love Ace of course, since he's my brother. And Nami's like a sister so I love her too. And Nojiko and Vivi. Even Sanji, especially when he gives me extra meat!"

"That's not exactly what Ace meant when he told you about that fountain, kid." Zoro mumbled.

"And I like Zoro!" Luffy continued, not hearing Zoro. He didn't notice the sudden turn of heads and pairs of eyes staring at him. Zoro did.

Trying his best to ignore the whispering and giggling surrounding them, Zoro grabbed Luffy's arm and started to sprint for the exit of the cafeteria. When they were in the hallway, the green-haired teen slammed the door closed and turned to Luffy, but didn't meet his eyes.

"Don't say that in the middle of the cafeteria, dimwhit!" He hissed. "It's frikkin' university, people _assume_ things when you say something like that."

"So?"

"So? What do you mean 'so?'? I don't want the school to think we're… we're… dating or something." He looked up to give Luffy an angry look, but he saw something he hadn't expect at all. Luffy was looking… insulted, even disappointed. Why? "What?"

"Nothing. Nevermind. Let's go find Ace." Luffy answered, his voice a lot softer than normal. He almost sounded cold. The boy left, not looking back to see if Zoro was following.

"What the fuck was _that_…?" Zoro mumbled to himself. He followed Luffy outside.

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When they reached the Gardens, Luffy was acting normal again. Like a ten year old, he wiggled around the smaller gardens, staring at the pretty colours and tasting some of the spices (which didn't taste very good). After a couple of minutes, the boy had stared at and tasted about everything in the Gardens, and he was reading to keep on walking. When the fountain came in sight (the Gardens were _very_ big), Zoro saw something unexpected again.

Something he wasn't sure Luffy should be seeing.

Only a couple of meters away from them were Ace and Sanji, sitting next to eachother, their backs towards Zoro and Luffy. First, it seemed like they were having a normal conversation, but after a closer look Zoro noticed they were actually holding hands.

"Oh hey, there's Ace, and Sanji! Hey, Oni-sa-" Before he could scream to get Ace's attention, Zoro had grabbed Luffy and covered the boy's mouth with his hand to smother his voice.

"Ssst, don't!" Zoro hissed. He threw a look to Ace and Sanji, but they didn't seem to have heard anything. "They're ehh… busy." He slowly removed his hand from the kid's mouth.

"Busy with what? Ace said he would always make time for me!" Luffy protested.

"I'm sure Ace would do that, but this really isn't a good time, kid." Zoro mumbled. "Now, don't talk so loud and just… let them be." Zoro tried to pull Luffy towards the exit of the Gardens, but stopped when Luffy wasn't protesting. He wasn't doing anything.

"Ey, Zoro. What are they doing…?" The boy softly mumbled. He stared at his brother and the cook with eyes wide open, a shocked look on his face.

Zoro looked around and immediately felt his cheeks getting red. "That… ehh… that would be kissing, kid."

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"I'm sorry I had to drag you away from the kitchen just like that, Sanji-kun." Ace said. "But I guess we need to talk."

"Don't worry about it, my shift was over anyway." Sanji mumbled, trying to reach the lighter he held in his pocket.

"Here." Ace, who wouldn't leave the house with at least fives boxes of matches, lit a match and held it near the cigarette Sanji has in his mouth.

"Thanks." Sanji lit the cigarette and sighed. He suddenly grabbed Ace's hand. "What happened?"

The black-haired man looked at his hand, which was wrapped in bandages and smiled shyly. "Had a little accident this morning. I sort of burned down the curtains."

"Tsk. Idiot." The cook mumbled. He didn't let go of the hand, though. "You really should be more careful, one of these days you'll be burning down the entire building."

"Don't call me that, you know I can't help it." Ace said insulted. It stayed silent between the two for a while, before Sanji spotted something, or rather someone, in the corner of his eyes.

"You're brother's here. And that cactus-guy." He mumbled, taking another draw of his cigarette.

"W-what? But I haven't told Luffy about… you know…" Ace panicked. Sanji squeezed his hand.

"Yeah yeah, I know." He sighed. "Just pretend you don't know he's here. Otherwise, he'll think you don't want him to know about us."

"But he's so young…"

"For God's sake, the kid's 17, Ace!" Sanji whispered.

"Mentally he isn't."

"Good point." Sanji sighed. "Look, he'll understand. He knows what love is. He'll just need a little bit more explenation because we're both guys."

"I guess you're right." Ace sighed and looked down at his hand which Sanji was still holding. He then noticed the blonde reaching forward a bit. The cook touched the student's chin, pulling it up a little so their eyes met again.

"Don't worry so much, idiot." Sanji reached forward and the two met in a loving meshing of lips, making Ace forget all about Luffy at that moment. He closed his eyes and wrapped his free arm around Sanji, enjoying the kiss as much as possible. He felt Sanji's hand, which was still on the student's chin, slide into his black hair.

Talking could be done later.

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"W-why are they kissing?" Luffy mumbled. "I mean, I know boys and girls kiss, but I never saw a boy kiss a boy before…"

"Y-yeah, stuff like that happens too." Zoro stuttered. "Look, why don't we go get some ice cream an-"

"Ooh my, the girls from the shounen-ai fanclub are gonna _love_ this!" Nami mumbled, startling Zoro with her sudden presence.

"Where the hell did _you_ come from?" The freshman hissed.

"Oh, hush, you're just ignorant. I was standing behind you guys all the time." And out of nowhere, the orange-haired girl had taken a camera. "I'm gonna earn some big money with pictures like this!"

"Would you stop that!" Zoro tried to take the camera from Nami, but the girl was quick at dodging the swordsman's attacks towards the camera.

"FINE." Nami finally sighed. "If you can make them touch each other, I _might_ consider giving you ten percent."

"For fuck's sa-" Zoro closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He felt his headache getting worse. "Hey, Luffy, how about some ice cream?"

"Whoa, ice cream!" Luffy's attention was drawn from his brother immediately. "Let's go let's go let's go!"

"I'm coming too!" Nami sang, putting away her camera. "I think I have enough pictures for now and I can't say no to free ice cream."

"Who invited you." Zoro mumbled, but Nami ignored him. "Let's just get out of here, okay?"

"Icecream!" Like he had already forgotten the weird scene he just witnessed, Luffy danced trough the Gardens, singing his famous 'Paina Pura Pura' song.

After leaving the Gardens, finding the snack bar and getting Luffy the biggest ice cream sundae possible, Zoro sat down on the little terrace in front of the snack bar. Nami had wanted the cheapest ice cream there was saying 'it was the best ice cream', though Zoro knew she knew Zoro didn't have a lot of cash. The swordsman bought a soda for himself. And together they were sitting on the terrace.

"Zoro, why did Ace and Sanji kiss?" Luffy suddenly asked, after swallowing all the ice cream at once without getting brain freeze. Zoro almost choked. Nami giggled.

"Look, kid, I'm not sure if I'm the right one to explain stuff like that to you. Why don't you just ask Ace when we're home." Zoro said.

"Why, I don't see a reason why you couldn't explain it to him, Zoro-kun." Nami said with a mischievous grin on her face.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Zoro grumbled.

"Oh, so you mean you're _not_ like… Ace and Sanji are…?" Nami smirked.

"Of course not! Why would you think so in the first place?" Zoro hissed.

"You just got this… vibe around you."

"I do _not_ have a vibe around me!"

"What kind of vibe?" Luffy interrupted their arguement.

"Nothing, Luffy, just ignore her." Zoro sighed.

"Oh, so you're already calling him Luffy, without the kun?" Nami's smirk grew bigger and bigger. "Isn't that interesting."

"Stop it right there!" Zoro yelled. "Don't even start, just shut up about it!"

"Oi, Zoro, can't you answer my question?" Luffy whined, before Nami could reply.

"Look, there's just something going on between that lovecook and you're brother, okay?" Zoro said.

"Something like what?"

"_Something_!"

"No, really, that's gonna make the kid understand." Nami whispered.

"You stay out of this! Why are you here anyway, don't you have to go to the hospital?"

"Nojiko's fine, according to the doctors, her recovery is going fine. I just left to pick up some stuff, but that can wait."

"No, that can't wait, I'm sure she's waiting for you." Zoro grunted. And after seeing his angry expression, Nami decided it was time to get back to the hospital.

"Fine, I'll give you two some _private time_, if that's really what you want." Nami giggled. "Bye bye Luffy-kun, Zoro-kun." They watched her leave.

"Finally, she's gone." Zoro mumbled.

"Why do you and Nami always fight." Luffy asked innocently, while reaching for the can of soda Zoro was holding.

"We just do, don't worry about it."

"Of course I worry about it, baka, I care about you two!" Luffy snatched the can out of the swordsman's hands and took a sip of whatever was inside. It tasted sweet. Zoro looked at the boy sitting next to him for a while. Why was he always so… happy and energetic? Luffy had no idea two men could have a relationship too, yet, he didn't seem surprised at all after seeing Ace and Sanji. Sure, he was shocked at first, but still; he accepted everything so easily. Perhaps this kid knew what love was after all.

"Ace-kun and Sanji-san…" The freshman started. "They have a relationship, you know. Just like your mom and dad used to have, and Vivi-chan and the guy from the store." He looked at Luffy again, to see if he was listening. And indeed he was, looking at Zoro with wide eyes, like he wanted to know everything there was to know about 'love'.

"They like each other, they might even be in love." Zoro continued. "And when two people love each other, they want to express that, by kissing for example."

"But I love Ace." Luffy said. "Should I kiss him?"

"God no, at least, not like that." Zoro sighed. This kid was oblivious after all. "Liking and loving like this, it's usually between two people who don't really have a relationship besides love. Like when two strangers meet, they start dating and they find out that they like each other. It's not something that happens often between siblings."

"How about friends?"

"Yeah, sure, friendship often evolves to a relationship like that…" Zoro muttered. He really wasn't good at this.

"Are there other ways to express love like that?" Luffy aksed. Zoro looked at him from the corners of his eyes. He sure had a lot of questions.

"Sure."

"Like…?"

"I dunno… giving each other presents or just… telling you love someone. I'm not sure, I've never really… eh…"

"Zoro never had a boyfriend?"

"No, I never had a _boyfriend_." Zoro grunted. Did Luffy also think he was gay or something? "Or a girlfriend for that matter."

"So… how about sex?"

"W-what?" Well, that was unexpected. "S- Luffy w-what…"

"It's just that, Ace once tried me to explain where babies come from, but that had something to do with a man and a woman." Luffy said. "Does that mean two men can't have a baby?"

"That's… yeah, that's correct." Zoro mumbled.

"So, men can't have sex together?"

"No, well, yeah but… Ehh…" Dear lord, this was going the wrong way. "Two men can still share a bed, but… they just have sex a different… way…" He thought.

"So when men are sharing a bed, they're having sex?"

"N-no, they… _NO_." Zoro closed his eyes tightly. What had he gotten himself into this time? "People can still share beds without having sex, that's just… ehh… another way of expressing love I guess."

"But what if-"

"Luffy, please stop with the questions!" Zoro pleaded. "Seriously, I don't know anything about love or whatsoever since I never had anyone to love in _that_ way. Please, just ask Ace when we get home!"

"Right, sorry Zoro!" Luffy grinned. "I'm just curious, that's all! But hey, are you feeling alright? You're a bit pale…"

"Yeah, fine." Zoro answered. "I didn't have much sleep. Nightmares and stuff."

"Ah, really? I had a nightmare too! It was really weird." Luffy closed his eyes, thinking deeply. "It was in a building and there were a lot of kids and everybody was wearing the same outfit…"

Wait, that sounded familiar. The swordsman looked at the kid from the corner of his eyes. Was he going to tell more?

"Ah, and there were some adults, but I didn't really like them for some reason. I think they were hurting the children, because one of the other boys looked like he was in a lot of pain." Luffy mumbled, trying to remember the dream. "It was so strange, since Robin was in it too; she was the only nice adult. And… I remember a fire, a big fire! Like _huge_, the whole building was burning! And then I woke up. Usopp said I was screaming stuff but I don't remember that at all." Luffy laughed.

"W-wha- you don't… Ehh, do you remember anything else, Luffy?" Zoro stuttered.

"You sure you're feeling okay? You're talking weird today!" Luffy answered, trying to balance the empty soda can on the top of his nose. "And no, I really don't remember anything. Except that… that boy that was hurt? I feel like I know that boy, like I still do. It's weird, really."

"Yeah, weird." Zoro mumbled. "Hey, Luffy, I think Ace would've returned to his room by now, why don't you go and ask him those questions, eh?"

"Okay!" Luffy jumped up. "Thanks for the ice cream and the explanations, Zoro! Bye!"

"Bye kid." Zoro lazily lifted his hand as a goodbye wave when the boy disappeared out of his sight. "Bye…"

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That dream, why did Luffy had a dream about the same place Zoro's dreams took place? He never told Luffy about the dreams, and he was sure Ace wouldn't just tell stuff like that to the kid. Then why did he know about it? Apparently it weren't just normal dreams, since Luffy was having almost the same dreams. Then what were they?

Caught up in his thoughts Zoro was walking trough the city. It had been a couple of hours since he had sent Luffy home, so he could think in peace about all this weird dream-stuff. He wasn't getting anywhere, though. He just didn't understand any of it.

The dreams always kind of felt like a memory afterwards. But say these dreams are memories; why did Luffy have the same memories? Did they grew up together? If so, why didn't neither of them remember it. And what on earth had that devil woman Robin had to do with this? Perhaps he should just pay her a visit…

Then again, he really didn't feel like visiting that woman if it wasn't absolutely necessary. He would just ask Ace when he got home. Talking about home, he probably should be heading back by now; it was getting dark.

But which way was home…?

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"Zoro! What happened?" After almost three hours of wandering around, Zoro found the way home. He wasn't sure how he had managed to get so lost, but that really didn't matter any more now he was home. He looked at Luffy, who had asked the question.

"Got lost, that's all." Zoro shrugged.

"Well, don't do that!" Luffy almost yelled. "When you didn't came home I thought you were going to that gym or something, but that was hours ago! I got really worried you know!" He stood up from Zoro's bed and ran towards the green-haired teen, suddenly wrapping his arms around the man's waist.

"Whoa, kid, what are you doi-"

"Ace said I shouldn't worry, since Zoro can take care of himself, but how can I not worry? I care about Zoro!"

"W-wha- Luffy, chill, it's okay; nothing happened and I'm back home now, okay?" Zoro said softly. He looked around and noticed Ace was sound asleep in his own bed. "Look, just get changed and go to bed, oke? I'll try not to get lost again in the future."

"Promise?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

"Okay…" Luffy finally let go and walked to the closet, where he could change. When the kid closed the door, Zoro decided he could probably use some sleep too. He changed and got into bed, right when Luffy stumbled out of the closet again.

"Ah, right, you still don't have a new bed, right?" Zoro mumbled. "You can sleep here, I'll sleep on the floor."

"Why?" Luffy asked.

"Because I'm not gonna let you sleep on the floor."

"Nobody has to sleep on the floor! Why can't we both sleep in one bed?"

"Luffy, remember that talk we had at the snackbar today, about sharing beds and stuff…?"

"Well, yeah, but if we just sleep, then there's nothing wrong, right?"

"I'm not going to sleep in one bed with you." Zoro muttered. "Besides, these beds are too small for that."

"We can try, right?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Just… no. Don't worry about it, I'll sleep on the floor."

"Stop saying that, stop saying I don't need to worry!" Luffy snapped. "Of course I worry, I don't want you to get cold and have a horrible night because you have to sleep on the floor! Besides, Ace told me about what happened last night, and if anyone should get the bed, it should be you."

"Look, I can handle it, okay? I've slept on the floor before."

"I know, but you're not going to this time!" Without warning, Luffy jumped on the bed, half on top of Zoro, who hadn't managed to get out of the bed yet. "We're just going to sleep together!'

"Seriously, don't say it like that." Zoro mumbled. "Alright, fine, I'll sleep in the same bed as you. However, I have to get up early tomorrow morning, so no whining when you also wake up!"

"No whining!" Luffy repeated. He then crawled under the blankets and tried to get comfortable, without hogging up all the space. Zoro sighed deeply as he tried to get comfortable too, but soon noticed the only way for the both of them to get comfortable was to sleep really close next to each other. And with Luffy moving around the whole time, trying to get comfortable, he knew it couldn't be helped.

Zoro grunted, "Stop moving, damnit." He grabbed the boy and pulled him close, wrapping his strong arms around him. "And don't you dare telling anyone about this."

Luffy giggled softly. "I won't." He whispered, snuggling close to the swordsman, his head resting against Zoro's chest. He actually felt quite comfortable here. No, it was more than comfortable; he felt happy. A happiness that soon was overruled by sleepiness and before he knew it, the boy was sound asleep.

Zoro sighed again. What had he gotten himself into _this_ time?

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_That's it. Yeah, I know, it's a lot shorter than other chapters, but this is the only good place to cut it off for now. Anyway, I'm not really happy with this chapter, there's just something seriously wrong with it, and if I had the time I would rewrite it. But I don't have that time, even though it's vacation, so blah. Just enjoy it for now!_

Thanks to Cowa for helping me out with her amazing English knowledge 8D Most of my time writing fanfics consists of searching in dictionary's for the right words, lol! Please review and tell me what you thought of the fluff in this chapter! It's my first time writing a kiss and I'm not sure if it's right… Besides, it's past 2 AM right now, so my brain wasn't really clear when writing this chapter, but somehow I only have time to write at night.

Thanks to Digitaldreamer for betareading! Sorry about the wich/which stuff, I just keep forgetting D:

Reviews make Blok happy and a happy Blok who remains a writing Blok (though a slow_ writing Blok…)._


	8. Chapter 8

**Multicolour Words  
Chapter 8   
By GunslingerBlok**

_I'm so sorry, I don't even know how to apologize. D:_

_**Disclaimer**: Oda-san still owns everything._

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It was still early when Zoro woke up, probably around half past six. He looked around the room and saw Ace had already left, which was strange. Ace never got out of bed before Zoro did, let alone out of the room. The freshman tried to stretch but felt something heavy clinging onto him. He looked down and saw a peacefully sleeping Luffy, his hands tighly grasping on to Zoro's shirt. And then everything from the day, and especially night before, came back.

It took him a while to get to boy to let go of his shirt, without waking him up. He kinda liked the kid this way; silent, peaceful and far from awake. Zoro slowly got out of his bed and made his way to the closet, as silent as possible. Without making a noise, he got dressed. He'd take a shower tonight. Upon leaving the room, he took a last glance at Luffy, still asleep. The green haired teen felt a smile creep unto his face, but closed the door before it would actually show.

The cafeteria was almost empty, as it was too early for most students to even be awake. There weren't even classes today, but he promised himself he'd go to the library this morning to work on a project.

It didn't take him long to find Ace, sitting by himself in the corner of the cafeteria, as there was nobody else there. Zoro first went to the kitchen, though, to get some coffee. But to his horror he noticed that damn love cook already being present.

"Coffee." Zoro grunted. Sanji didn't respond. The cook wasn't even looking at him. He was glaring at Ace, sitting far away from him. "Hey, love cook." The freshman waved his hand in front of Sanji, making the blond snap out of his thoughts.

"What?" Sanji muttered, but, unlike usual, it didn't sound hateful at all. Somehow, this worried Zoro.

"Coffee." Zoro repeated. He looked at Ace as Sanji was pouring some coffee in a large mug. "What's wrong between the two of you?"

"None of your business." Sanji responded. "Sugar?"

"Black." Zoro took the mug from the cook and glanced at him. No hateful words, no deadly looks. Wow, this felt awkward. "Maybe not, but why won't you just go talk to your boyfriend?"

"He ain't my boyfriend." Sanji mumbled. "Boyfriends don't flirt with other people."

"What, Ace flirted with someone?" Zoro felt like laughing, but restrained himself. Ace wasn't the kind of person to flirt with anyone, boyfriend or no boyfriend.

"Like _you_ wouldn't know!" Sanji suddenly hissed. "Just go!" With that he closed the shutters.

"Whatever." Zoro mumbled, as he made his way trough the large room to get to Ace. "Hey, you left the room early today." But Ace didn't respond. He just sighed deeply and didn't even seem to notice Zoro.

"What is it, 'ignore-Zoro-day' or something?" Zoro said annoyed. "HEY, Ace-san!"

"Hm?" With sleepy eyes the pyromaniac looked at Zoro. "Ah, Zoro-kun."

"What is going on with you and that love cook?" The freshman asked. "Both of you are acting weird."

"Why? What's wrong with Sanji-kun?" Ace asked.

"So you guys didn't have a fight?" Zoro sighed. "Now I don't even _want_ to know what's going on with him. But you, if you aren't having a fight with him, then _why_ are you so depressed?"

Suddenly, a grumpy and almost hateful look appeared on Ace's face. It was something Zoro had never seen with his roommate, and it made him feel really uncomfortable.

"I don't know." Ace muttered trough clenched teeth. "But I think it's best if you leave me alone for now."

"Okay, chill…" Zoro said. He took his mug of coffee and left his roommate. As soon as he left, the depressed and worried look returned to Ace's face. What was going on with the world today?

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Back in his room, Zoro found Luffy still asleep. He walked to the bed and sat down on the floor next to it. The kid looked so different when asleep. When awake he always wore that big grin of his, that symbol of eternal happiness. When asleep, there was a small smirk on his face. It was still a happy face, though.

That happy smirk soon turned into a grimace, an almost painful look. The boy started to mumble things, things that sounded familiar to Zoro.

"Hnngg… Don't take… him… leave alone… C…Crocodile… stop… experiments… Robin…" Luffy turned around in his sleep, facing away from Zoro. "You're… hurting… Z… NO!" The teenager woke up with a shock, almost falling from the bed as he sat up fast.

"Whoa, Luffy, calm down." Zoro grabbed the boy's shoulders as he tried to look in his eyes, but Luffy wouldn't sit still. He had his eyes closed and was screaming as hard as he could. Zoro desperately tried to calm the boy down, but nothing worked. Nothing, but perhaps one thing.

The freshman leaned forward, wrapping his strong arms around the slender figure of his friend while resting his chin on the boy's shoulder. He held him tightly, making sure Luffy wouldn't move anymore. He kept on screaming, though.

"LUFFY!" Zoro yelled. "LUFFY, CALM DOWN!" But Luffy kept screaming, not showing any signs of calming down. Meanwhile, Zoro started feeling weak. He felt drained, like he had no energy left at all. His strong arms, still wrapped around Luffy, lost their strength and the raven haired boy started wiggling again. "Just… calm down… please…" After that, everything went black and the last thing he remembered was hitting the floor.

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"I told him to go to the doctor, but he didn't go!"

"Ace-san, calm down. He'll be fine."

"How can you be so sure? He fainted, _again_! And Luffy, why did he faint? Why did they _both_ faint?"

"Lack of sleep?"

A grunt. "Believe me, they've had plenty of sleep."

"Then why are you so grumpy about that?"

"I am _not_ grumpy, I'm just utterly concerned, that's all!"

"Can you 'be concerned' somewhere else? I'm trying to get some rest here." Zoro mumbled.

"Zoro-kun! You're awake!" Vivi leaned forward, looking at the freshman. "How are you feeling? Are you okay? We were so worried!"

"I'm fine, Vivi-san." Zoro sat up, slowly opening his eyes to let them get used to the light. "What did I hear about Luffy fainting?"

"We found you two both passed out. Luffy on the bed, you on the floor. What happened?" Sanji inquired as he entered the room. He still looked grumpy, but did his best to cover it up.

"I'm not su… wait." The green haired teen closed his eyes for a moment, sorting his thoughts. "Luffy, he was acting weird. He was sleeping, when suddenly he woke up and started screaming. I tried to calm him down but when I touched him… it was so strange… Like my energy was getting sucked out. I lost my strength, everything went black and I guess I fainted." He looked up, looking at Ace, Vivi and Sanji. "Where is he now?"

"He woke up a couple of hours ago. Since he needed to rest, I asked Usopp-kun if he could stay at Kaya-chan's house, so he's there now." Ace sighed deeply and whispered, more to himself than anyone else; "Why is this all happening now. Could it have something to do with you coming to this university?"

"You okay?" Zoro asked. Ace shook his head and smiled, letting his friend now that everything was alright.

"Come on, Zoro-kun," Vivi said. "I'll bring you to the nurse's office."

"What? Oh God no, I don't want to go visit that nurse _at all_!" Zoro grumbled, but before he could protest, Ace and Vivi had dragged him out of bed and into the hallways. Sanji just grinned as the green haired teen was literally dragged over the floor to the hallway.

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The nurse's office wasn't what you would expect when visiting a nurse's office. Instead of the white walls you would expect in any doctor's office, or something alike, the walls of the small room Zoro was sitting in on this very moment were a soft blue colour. The furniture, as far as you could call that single worn-down chair and the bed furniture, were coloured an awfull shade of pink that didn't fit the colour of the walls at all. But nobody seemed bothered by it. Except Zoro, that is.

Vivi and Ace were still there. Vivi was seated in the waiting room while Ace was pacing in circles, which was quite hard, as there were medical instruments standing everywhere and a small sink unit stuffed in the corner of the room, in addition to the 'furniture'. The pyromaniac was mumbling things, more to himself than to anyone else. Vivi was pretending to casually look around, like she wasn't bothered by what had happened, betraying herself by throwing worried glares at Zoro every once in a while.

Zoro was lying on the bed. Which was extremely comfortable, he noticed. He felt kinda nice at this moment, if you ignored the thrusting headache he had and perhaps the horrible pain in his back from lying on the floor for so long. But he knew the nice feeling would be over when the nurse would enter the room. Zoro sighed.

Said nurse entered the room almost immediately after Zoro's sigh.

"I had expected you a lot sooner, mister Roronoa." Nurse Doublefinger said. "Didn't you promise to visit me yesterday?"

"Yes… yes I did." Zoro said slowly. "But I had other things to… do." Weird. He couldn't think clearly.

"Yes, I noticed. Fainting next to your bed in the early morning…" Nurse Doublefinger said, while flipping trough a set of papers she was holding in her hands. She put them down on the small sink unit. "Have you fainted before, mister Roronoa?"

"No." Zoro answered. "Yes." He immediately corrected after seeing Ace throwing death glares at him.

"And when was the last time you fainted?" Doublefinger asked, bending over to Zoro and taking out a small flashlight from the pocket of her white labcoat. While shining with the flashlight in one of his eyes, she bent over even more, examining the reaction of his pupils.

"I don't know, a couple of days ago?" Zoro sighed.

"Fainting twice in such a small period of time…" Doublefinger mumbled. "Isn't… healthy…"

"Yes, I am aware of that, so I was dragged here to see you." Zoro grumbled. "I mean, came here of my own free will, of course." He corrected. This time Vivi was sending him death glares. Women, and gay narcolaptic pyromaniacs for that matter, could be scary sometimes.

"I'm sorry, of course you are aware of that…" Doublefinger stood up straight again, turning around to face Ace. "I have to do a physical exam, so I have to ask you to leave. You can wait outside the room."

"Of course, nurse." Ace answered immediately. He grabbed Vivi's wrist and dragged her, quite quickly, out of the room. After the door closed, nurse Doublefinger faced Zoro again.

"Please take of your shirt," She said, before turning around _again_ and taking a black stethoscope from the sink unit. "I need to listen to your heart…" She turned around once again to face Zoro, but froze when she saw the naked torso of the man.

"Where did you get that scar?" Doublefinger whispered.

Zoro looked down at his chest, where the large scar, that went diagonal from shoulder to hip, looked back at him. "Not sure. I've had it as long as I can remember.

"But it's still so… clear." Doublefinger mumbled. She walked to Zoro and bend over again to examine the scar. "If you got it at a very young age, it's possible you wouldn't remember, but then the scar wouldn't be so clear…"

"Look, I hardly remember anything before my 9th birthday, okay? I probably got it before that." Zoro sighed.

"Possible…" Doublefinger sighed. "Right, but that isn't really important now, is it?" She grabbed the stethoscope again.

A couple of tests later Zoro was free to go again.

"I don't see any physical problems, so I guess I can't hold you here any longer." Nurse Doublefinger smiled. "But please let me know if something like this happens again."

"Yeah, yeah…" Zoro opened the door of the nurse's office. When leaving the room though, he noticed he was standing on something. Something soft. Zoro looked down to see he was in fact standing on one of Ace's legs. "Vivi-chan…"

"Oh, he fell asleep again." Vivi sighed exhausted, sitting against a wall. "I tried dragging him away from the door, but he's too heavy for me!"

"I guess we need to bring him back to the room, then…" Zoro said.

"You could lay him down on the bed here." Nurse Doublefinger offered.

"That's okay," Zoro scooped Ace up, bridal style. Whoa, Ace was pretty heavy indeed. "The room isn't that far away."

"Well, be careful. You've had a rough night." With that Nurse Doublefinger closed the door of the office.

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Back in the room Zoro had a hard time lying Ace down on his bed. In the two-minute walk from the nurse's office to the room Ace had grabbed Zoro's shirt and apperantly wasn't planning on letting go any time soon. But after a long struggle and Zoro's shirt almost ripping, the green haired freshman managed to get away from Ace's strong grip.

"Well… That was awkward." He sighed, stepping away from the bed. Vivi just nodded.

"I have some things to do," She said. "So I'll be leaving now. Get some rest, Zoro-san."

"Yeah yeah." Zoro grumbled. "Bye Vivi-chan."

After Vivi left and the door closed behind her, Zoro sat down on his bed. He probably should've asked the nurse for some painkillers; the headache was only getting worse. He was also worried about Luffy. The kid had acted so strange, something Zoro had never seen. Zoro didn't have a way to contact Luffy either, as the boy didn't have a cellphone and Zoro didn't have Kaya's number or address.

"Maybe I should wake up Ace-san and ask him…" Zoro mumbled to no one in particular. But before he could stand up and wake the pyromaniac, there was a knock on the door.

"Mister Portugas, I would like to have a word with you." A low voice said from the other side of the door. Wait, that voice sounded familiar… Another knock sounded.

"Yeah yeah, I'm coming." Zoro yelled. He walked to the door and placed his hand on the door handle.

"Wait Zoro-san!" Ace, barely awake, reached out to Zoro, trying to stop him from opening the door. But he was too late. Zoro had already turned the door handle, and whoever it was on the other side, kicked the door open, rushed in and grapped the green haired student around his neck, lifting him up in the air.

Zoro was right; he had recognized the voice. It belonged to the large black man, that Mr. 1 guy.

"My my, what do we have here," The man, who was at least one head larger than Zoro, said. "Miss Doublefinger was right."

"What… the… ghh!" Zoro couldn't breath. His face turned a dangerous shade of purple as he tried kicking Mr. 1 with all his power. But no matter where he kicked, or how hard, the man didn't flinch. Was this guy made of metal, or what?

"Wait, leave him alone!" Ace jumped from the bed, grabbing one of Mr. 1's broad arms. "He has nothing to do with this, let him go!"

Mr. 1 looked at Ace's pleading face, like he was considering the request. Then he let go. "Only because we might need him."

Zoro fell on the floor, his legs unable to carry him. He coughed, grasping his chest, as he tried to catch his breath. Ace knelt beside him. After almost a minute, Zoro managed to mumble something. "Doublefinger?"

"Yes," Mr. 1 grinned. "The lovely nurse you visited barely ten minutes ago. Our way of exchanging information is fast."

"Wh… what… 'o-our' way?" Zoro coughed.

"I'm surprised. I thought you would have told him everything by now…" Mr. 1 said, looking at Ace.

"I was waiting for the right moment." Ace sighed.

"Ace…" Zoro grumbled, grabbing Ace's shoulder. "What the fuck… is going… on…"

"He's getting impatient." Mr. 1 said, before Ace could answer Zoro's question.

"I know." Ace stood again, barely reaching Mr. 1's shoulder. "But he won't go with you."

"Where is he!?" Mr. 1, losing his _own_ patience, grabbed Ace's black t-shirt and lifted him in the air. "Do not underestimate my authority. I _am_ allowed to hurt you!"

"If it saves Luffy, then I'm fine with it." Ace said, though he was struggling to get free.

"Very well, then I wil-" But Mr.1 didn't finish his sentence, as the shining blade of a katana was pushed under his chin.

"Sendai Kitetsu wants blood," Zoro said, holding Sendai Kitetsu in one hand and another unsheathed sword with a white handle in the other. "And I'm not afraid to give it to him."

"Hm, the cursed sword, the third Kitetsu…" Mr. 1 said. He looked at Ace, then at Zoro, the swords and Ace again. After that, he let go.

"We thought the boy wouldn't be here…" Mr. 1 said. "I came just to be sure… Mister Portugas, time is running out." The large man turned around and left the room.

It stayed silent in the room for a couple of minutes. Eventually the silence was broken by a loud sigh from Ace.

"Are you gonna talk on your own, or do I need to ask you again?" Zoro asked, sheathing his swords.

"I am so sorry you had to be dragged in all of this, Zoro-san." Ace sighed again.

"Not what I asked."

"I know, just thought I'd let you know."

"Continue."

"That man, Mr. 1, he's after Luffy. Well, no, the man he works for is after Luffy."

"Why? And how does he know me?" Zoro sat down on his bed, resting against the wall. His throat was hurting.

"He heard about you from nurse Doublefinger," Ace said. "They're after Luffy, and eventually you too, because of something that happened in the past."

"The past?"

"You and Luffy… You've known each other for years. You grew up together."

"Wait, what!?" Zoro jumped up. "How? Wouldn't I remember someone like Luffy?" Of course he would remember someone as weird as Luffy. Right?

"You don't understand." Ace rubbed his eyes. God, how he wanted to sleep… "Something happened that made you lose your memory. And Luffy's memory too."

"You mean, Luffy can't remember much from before his eight birthday either?" Zoro asked.

"His sixth birthday, actually. He's two years younger than you are and you lost your memories at the same time."

"How?"

"A special technique developed by Baroque Works… So you wouldn't testify against them."

"What? Ace-san, the more you say, the less I understa-" Before Zoro could finish, there was another knock on the door. Immediately zoro jumped up, unsheathing the sword with the white handle, Wadou Ichimonji. Ace stood up too, but slower. Even his body was exhausted.

"Who is it?" He yelled.

"It's me, Luffy, open the door! I got something awesome to tell!"

Zoro let out the breath he was holding and quickly put his sword away. He remembered what had happened last time Luffy got his swords. Meanwhile, Ace had opened the door.

Next to Luffy, who had the most illuminating smile ever in the history of Luffy-smiles, was standing an older man. He was probably about thirty years old, with red hair that reached his ears. He had a stubbly beard and three similar scars going over his left eye. Being dressed in simple jeans and a baggy blue t-shirt, with black short sleeves and the word 'king' across his chest in white letters, Zoro immediately noticed he was missing his left arm.

"Shanks!" Ace said as soon as he had opened the door. "Shanks, you're back!"

"Yes, yes I am." Shanks smiled. He and Ace hugged, Ace being too stunned to say anything intelligent.

"Usopp and I were waling near the station when we ran into him!" Luffy chirped. "Isn't it awesome?"

"Y-yes, awesome…" Ace mumbled. "Look, Luffy, we have to talk. But after I talked to Shanks first. Private."

"Is something going on, Ace?" Shanks asked.

"Yes, so Zoro-kun, could you please take Luffy to the cafeteria for some lunch?" Ace asked.

"Sure," Zoro answered. "But after that, _we_ talk. C'mon kid."

"W-wait! I wanna talk to Shanks!" Luffy exclaimed. "I wanna hear all about his adventures!"

"It's okay, Luffy." Shanks said. "Why don't you come by for dinner tonight? I'll tell you everything you want to hear then, okay?"

"But Shanks can't cook!" Luffy pouted.

"Then I'll learn how to cook." Shanks answered smiling. "Please, Luffy? I'll see you later, okay?"

"Fine." Luffy said, walking to the door with an angry face. "C'mon Zoro! Sanji's making macaroni!"

"How'd you know?" Zoro followed. Just before Ace closed the door, Luffy could be heard saying 'I can smell it!'. He smiled a little.

"So what is going on?" Shanks asked, sitting down on Zoro's bed. "It's unlike you to be so serious, and to not introduce me to the boy with the cactus head."

"Baroque Works." Ace sat down as well.

"Ah. They surfaced?"

"Yeah. They're after Luffy again. And Zoro-kun."

"Cactus head is Roronoa Zoro? They met again?"

"I never imagined this would happen… And their meeting actually triggered some memories! Zoro-kun is starting to remember things!"

"And Luffy?"

"Not sure… He doesn't really talk about his dreams. They're mostly about meat anyway…" Ace sighed.

"They _dream_ their memories?"

"Yes…"

"What now?"

"Not sure… Baroque Works can't kidnap them again. They know they're being watched. Mr. 1, he has been visiting me, trying to get me to give Luffy to them. Luffy can't decide on his own yet, as he's a minor."

"And Zoro-kun?"

"He barely knows what's going on. Just before you arrived, Mr. 1 was here again. Zoro-kun was here as well…" Ace closed his eyes, burying his face in his hands. "Zoro-kun can take care of himself, but Luffy…"

Shanks stood again and started walking up and down the room. It stayed silent for a while.

"You have to take him…" Ace suddenly whispered.

"What?"

"Take him with you, Shanks! You're going travelling again, right?" Ace jumped up, grabbed Shanks' shoulders and looked at him with begging eyes. "He has to go away, far away from this town! And I don't trust anyone enough but you!"

"Ace, hold on!" Shanks interrupted him. "Ace… I… We aren't going travelling again. They cut us down. Something about us spending too much money on sake…" Shanks grinned sheepishly.

"B-But…"

"Ace, I can't take Luffy somewhere I'm not going."

"I see." Ace sat down again, feeling defeated. "Then I have no other choice…"

"And that is?"

"Though they are being watched, they know there are moments Luffy is unprotected…" Ace sighed. "He needs protection, twenty-four-seven."

"What are you saying?" Shanks asked carefully.

"I don't have enough money to move out of town, so I'll just have to protect him myself. I-I'll quite university and… move in with Nojiko, Nami and Luffy."

"Ace, you can't quite university! It's your future!" Shanks protested. "And what are you planning on doing; following him around everywhere?"

"If I have to, then yes." Ace buried his face in his hands again. Shanks sat down next to him, unsure what to do.

"I don't know what to do…."

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On the other side of the door, Luffy pushed himself away from the wood that separated him from his brother. He stared at the spot he had placed his ear earlier to eavesdrop and felt tears welling up.

"Luffy…" Zoro places his hands on the boy's shoulder. "Let's go get something to eat…"

"Yeah…"

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_S-SO SORRY! First I don't update for months and now I post a chapter that is so short! I really am sorry guys, and I still love this story :3 I'll try to update soon again, promise! I STILL LOVE ARE MY READERS! Cookies for everyone, haha!_

_And some exta cookies for DigitalDreamer, who betaread this chapter, even after such a long time of inactivity :D_

_Please review so I know Multicolour Words is still being read._


	9. Hold it!

**Multicolour Words**

**Chapter 8**

**By GunslingerBlok**

An apology. 

_**Disclaimer**__: Oda-san still owns everything._

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Wow. I can't believe it's been over a year since I last updated Multicolour Words. I don't think I've ever felt this guilty. I really, REALLY want to update MW, you guys, but I just haven't got the time! I'm in my last year of Dutch high school, and, as some of the Dutch people who read this (aren't much, I reckon) know, it's hard.

You see, I don't have much concentration. In fact, I get distracted by hearing someone sigh on the other side of the classroom in school. Therefore, I pretty much fail at school XD Not my intention, but alas.

So. I have to study. Study like there's no tomorrow so I can make my exams, get straight A's (.. as if, ha!), get my diploma and take a bloody year off to work and do basically nothing much.

But until the day I receive my diploma (my exams start May 19th) or the day school stops for me (April 25), I won't have the time to write anything. Therefore, I need to ask you guys to be a little more patient for now. Just those few more months of school and torture. Is that okay?

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_:3 So yeah, maybe in a few months; chapter 9?_


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